Finding the Causes of Long COVID

A year and a quarter into the pandemic, it's clear that the after-effects of  COVID-19 infection that many people suffer (commonly known as long COVID) merit serious study. It's an important subject, given the number of people affected and the serious nature of some of the symptoms. 

Nature has a long article discussing some of the research that is now underway into long COVID, its causes, and potential cures. If you, or someone you know, is suffering from long COVID, you'll want to read this. 

Too many have died from COVID-19, but fortunately many have recovered, most without the need for hospitalization. Yet many recoverees are plagued by often life-derailing symptoms such as breathing problems, deep fatigue, joint pain, ‘brain fog’ and heart palpitations. Long COVID will affect, and already is affecting, millions of people and needs to be taken seriously, says Adrian Hayday, an immunologist at the Francis Crick Institute. Data are still emerging, says Karolinska Institute researcher Petter Brodin, but to a first approximation it appears that 70–80% of people experiencing severe acute reactions to COVID-19 are men, whereas women comprise 70–80% of those suffering from long COVID. The average age of long-haul patients is 40, says neuroimmunologist Avi Nath, who is intramural clinical director of the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). “They are in the most productive phases of their lives.”

Long COVID may very well have multiple causes, say Hayday and Brodin. Yale University immunologist Akiko Iwasaki and others have also noted that long COVID is likely to involve multiple types of conditions with different causes1,2. For example, autoantibodies could play a part, with the immune system attacking the body as it does in rheumatoid arthritis3. Perhaps viral reservoirs or lingering fragments of viral RNA or proteins contribute to the condition. The exact cause of long-COVID is currently unknown, says Rockefeller University researcher Jean-Laurent Casanova, who also has a lab at Necker Hospital in Paris. Viral diseases have long been studied, but COVID-19 is a “new disease” that pushes the research community and the world more generally into “uncharted territories,” says Casanova.

If you haven't had COVID-19, and especially if you haven't yet been vaccinated, this article may scare you into getting your dose as soon as humanly possible.