The Long-Term Health Impacts of Being Infected With the Coronavirus
Experts take clues from other infections and predict what the future might hold for Covid-19 survivors
In the Covid-19 self-help group Survivor Corps on Facebook, people share their symptoms of crippling fatigue, feeling groggy or fuzzy-headed, joint pain and deep bone aches, chest pain, heart palpitations, headaches, dizziness, and insomnia — and these are all after they’ve recovered from the cough and fever of the primary infection.
There is growing concern about the potential long-term consequences of Covid-19, with reports of symptoms lingering for weeks and even months. Survivors want to know how long these afflictions will last or if they’ll ever completely go away, not to mention what might be waiting around the corner in the months and years to come.
While it might feel like we’ve been in collective quarantine forever, Covid-19 is still a very new disease that has only been present in humans for six months. That means long-term studies of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and subsequent infection are in their infancy. However, experts can take clues from other viral illnesses to try to predict how survivors might fare one, two, five, or 10 years from now.
