Experts: Urgent help is needed

Long-haul patients struggling for months

The long-lasting and life-changing legacy of Covid-19 is today laid bare as Scots victims describe how the virus has inflicted months of ill-health, exhaustion and mental anguish.

A series of interviews with Scots, some who have almost died after contracting coronavirus, detail the impact on their lives as experts call for urgent and systematic support for the thousands of patients facing a long, arduous recovery.

Most sufferers recover after about two weeks but around one in 10 people experiences prolonged illnesses. Some have remained ill for three or four months since catching Covid as a range of debilitating symptoms come and go.

Now doctors and patients are calling for more research into so-called “Long Covid” and want better help with rehabilitation from health services.

Many patients report having their concerns about ongoing health problems dismissed by their GP, while others have struggled to access appropriate rehab.

Researchers are trying to understand why some patients suffer from this slow, drawn-out illness while others fall seriously ill very quickly, suffering extreme breathing problems and need to be treated in a hospital intensive care unit. Some patients whose initial Covid-19 symptoms were relatively mild still suffer debilitating and lengthy after-effects.

Evidence of the sheer scale of Long Covid has come from the UK Covid Symptom Study, where people enter their ongoing symptoms in a smartphone app. The study is run by King’s College, London, and has 200,000 Scots signed up to report on their symptoms.

The app is run by professor

Tim Spector, head of genetic epidemiology at the hospital, who said: “Many of these patients were not ill enough to be treated in