For much of Europe, the peak of COVID-19 infections has passed. But while hospitals are no longer awash with acute cases, there are thousands of people who had either confirmed or suspected COVID and, weeks or months later, say they are far from fully recovered.
In the United Kingdom, communities of "long COVID" sufferers have spring up online, as people try to manage what appear to be long-term effects of a virus about which much remains unknown.
"They are not only those that were in ICU and intubated because of COVID, but also patients that spent not more than three days in the hospitals and then went home," he said. "We investigate aspects that escape standard virological and pulmonary exams." "The positive thing is that, after a period of exercise in our gym, most of them can recover efficiently."
Despite his physical progress, Pescarolo said he had trouble concentrating and was still very concerned about his cognitive powers, "especially short-term memory, I don't remember simple things." De Freitas fell ill in mid-March, with a cough, occasional fever, breathing difficulties, chest pains and the loss of her sense of smell. After a few days, her chest pains became so severe and heart rate so uneven that she thought she was about to have a cardiac arrest and her husband, himself a doctor, took her to the emergency department, she said.
When she fell ill at the end of March, "it hit me like a bus," said O'Hara. She had a cough, breathlessness and fatigue that kept her "flat out" in bed for two weeks. "If it wasn't in the middle of a pandemic, I would have been down at the hospital because I couldn't breathe properly," she said. However, mindful of NHS messaging that people should avoid seeking hospital care unless absolutely necessary, she stayed home.
Like Pescarolo, O'Hara has noticed her mind seems less sharp. "I have brain fog, I can't function. I have a PhD in physics and I can't put two thoughts together," she said. She is also concerned that research into the long-term effects of the illness is focused on those who were hospitalized. "Nobody's asking us who were not in hospital -- we are just left out of the system," she said. "That's a real issue."Grace Dolman, a 39-year-old doctor at Addenbrooke's Hospital, in Cambridge, also fell ill in March. She, too, stayed home struggling with a cough and breathing difficulties but in hindsight says she should have gone to hospital.
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