While COVID-19 is a short-lived illness in most people, others experience lingering symptoms, including fatigue, for months after their initial infection. So what should you do if you’re suffering with post-viral fatigue, following COVID-19 or a different virus?
By now, many of us are familiar with the idea of ‘long COVID‘ – a lingering post-viral illness that can follow a COVID-19 infection. Most people who contract the coronavirus recover within two to three weeks. However, we now know there’s a subset of patients for whom that’s not the case.
The British Medical Journal defines ‘long COVID’ as “illness in people who have either recovered from COVID-19 but are still reporting lasting effects of the infection or have had the usual symptoms for far longer than would be expected”. While we don’t know exactly how many people this applies to, the tally could be as high as one in 10 of those infected.
According to data from the UK’s COVID-19 symptom app, there are around 300,000 people in the UK who have reported symptoms lasting for more than a month. Over 60,000 (1.5% of those taking part in the study) were still experiencing symptoms after three months.
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