What are we learning about Long Covid? Should the risk of chronic illness change what precautions we take?
Everyone is at risk of Long Covid. Especially if you've had Covid before. Even if you feel healthy and have always recovered after getting sick.
Long Covid can affect anyone, regardless of age, health, lifestyle, and whether or not you have preexisting conditions.
Mild infections (even “asymptomatic” ones you don’t notice) can damage cells and organs in many ways, and every infection adds to the risk of developing long-term symptoms.
Some of these long-term effects linger after the initial infection, while others only appear months after it seems like you’ve recovered. Organ damage and immune dysfunction can add up, increasing the risk of developing long-term symptoms from future Covid infections and other diseases.
Learn with us:
How common is Long Covid? Who gets it?
Getting vaccinated helps keep you out of the hospital, but it isn’t enough to protect you from Long Covid.
Vaccines offer partial protection against long-term illness after infection. Staying up-to-date on available vaccines may help if you test positive … but they only partially reduce your risk of long-term symptoms. Vaccines don’t reliably protect you from developing new health problems or the worsening of any preexisting conditions.
There is mounting evidence that past infection weakens the immune system, adding to the risk of future infections, prolonged symptoms, organ damage, and the risk of other diseases over time.
The best—and only—way to avoid Long Covid is to avoid Covid. If you have already had Covid, getting it again means additional cell and organ damage and a growing risk of symptoms and disease. If you’re experiencing symptoms already, reinfection can make things even worse.
It is never too late to work toward breaking the cycle of reinfection.
Learn with us:
Do vaccines protect against Long Covid? How much?
Long Covid is more than a little fatigue and brain fog. It can be life-changing and career-ending, and the damage can ruin lives in ways we can’t necessarily see at first.
The name “Long Covid” can be misleading. This chronic illness isn’t just a mild version of the initial infection that “sticks around.”
It’s easy to think of symptoms like fever, coughing, and fatigue as the disease itself, but these are only some of the early symptoms. The true impact on our bodies is more extensive.
By attacking blood vessels throughout the body, the virus causes widespread damage that can accumulate both over time and with repeat infections. It can affect nearly every bodily system and cause hundreds of different symptoms.
Some experience debilitating, life-changing disease—even those previously in peak physical condition. Others feel fine, but later suffer heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, dementia, autoimmune diseases, organ failure, and more.
Learn with us:
What are Long Covid's symptoms? How varied are they?
There’s so much we don’t yet understand about Long Covid. Few doctors are well equipped to order useful tests and advise on managing symptoms.
Without easily accessible diagnostic tests and better physician education, some doctors dismiss Long Covid as “merely” a mental condition rather than a physical illness: those suffering are sometimes accused of “not pushing through” or “not wanting to recover.” This disparaging attitude has been a common response to real-but-poorly-understood illnesses for centuries.
Managing Long Covid symptoms can become an all-consuming burden that ends careers and alters family life, just as with a similar illness called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). Although research is underway, most people with Long Covid are still struggling to find effective treatments after their lives have been upended by this disease.
Learn more with World Health Network resources:
I think I might be suffering from Long Covid. What do I do?
The scientific community is mobilizing to develop better vaccines and new treatments. But, for now, staying safe means avoiding infection and doing our part to stop the spread of the virus.
Everyone is tired of Covid. It’s tempting to return to life as it was before the pandemic, especially if your illness hasn’t seemed serious so far.
But without protective measures, the virus continues to spread and adapt to our immune systems. Repeat infections are common and each new infection risks the length and quality of the rest of our lives. Taking action is critical to preserving our long-term health—at least while Covid still spreads unchecked.
We can opt out of this risky game of “Russian Roulette” by protecting ourselves from airborne illness. Masks stop the virus at its source, while open windows and air filters flush out the rest. By testing and isolating, we break the chains of viral transmission before they begin.
It’s never too late to reexamine the precautions we’re taking at work, in the community, and with friends and family. Each infection avoided protects our long-term health while scientists continue their work to stop Covid for good.
Learn with us:
What can we do to stop Covid? How do we preserve our long-term health?