I’m 9 weeks post being diagnosed with Covid-19. I’m struggling with what feels like my 4th relapse of Covid symptoms, including sore throat, headaches, fatigue, and breathlessness. There is growing evidence of the longer-term milder symptoms of Covid-19 that have left patients like myself feeling isolated and confused about our health. As one of the 1.2K members of the UK’s Covid-19 support group #covid1in20 on Facebook it is common to hear of health care professionals, our families and our friends being equally bemused by Covid-19 often citing the swings of ill health to be caused by anxiety. Anxiety may be playing a part, but it is not the whole story, and the longer term impact of this disease is not fully understood.
Professor Spector, who is leading the UK’s largest symptom tracking app has been quoted as saying the long-term impact of the virus is being underestimated, and although the vast majority of Covid-19 patients will make a full and speedy recovery, there are a small but significant number whose symptoms will vary and persist for weeks and even months after falling ill. Professor Spector and the team at King’s College, London are showing that 1 in 20 have long-term symptoms for at least a month, and 1 in 10 still have symptoms after three weeks. Read more here on this.
You can join the Covid Symptom Study here: https://covid.joinzoe.com. Anyone can also share your stories of Covid recovery here in the hope that we can help build a body of evidence of what Covid recovery really looks like.