Public Health Experts Turn Focus to COVID “Long-Haulers”

Scientists, doctors, and health officials are turning their attention to the long-term symptoms of COVID-19. This month, the US government convened its first workshop dedicated to the subject, bringing together public health officials, medical researchers, and patients.

Though the number of people afflicted with long-term COVID symptoms, known as long-haulers, is still unknown, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, told The New York Times that if even a small percentage of the millions of people infected with the coronavirus experience long-term symptoms, it is “going to represent a significant public health issue.” The experts at the workshop suggested the condition should be recognized as a syndrome with its own name, and urged medical professionals to take it seriously.

The long-term post-COVID symptoms identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) include fatigue, joint pain, chest pain, brain fog, and depression. Dr. Ann Parker, co-director of a post-COVID clinic at Johns Hopkins, is seeing patients with substantial mental health impairments: “Approximately three months after their acute illness, more than half of our patients have at least a mild cognitive impairment.”

Doctors and researchers still know little about which patients will develop these symptoms, to what extent they will develop, what causes some of them, or how to address them. Even for people who experienced a mild initial case of the virus, the long-term symptoms may be serious. 

Chimére Smith, a teacher in Baltimore who is Black, has not been able to work since becoming sick with COVID in March, and she continues to struggle with long-term symptoms such as loss of vision in one eye. She emphasized the need for experts to explain to underserved communities—who are disproportionately affected by the pandemic—that the long-term effects are “as real and possible as dying from the virus itself.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) agrees the lingering symptoms present an urgent challenge. WHO has planned its own initiative focused on long-term coronavirus effects and will soon begin collecting data.