Susan Taylor knows she’s one of the lucky ones. She feels blessed to have survived COVID-19, but she also acknowledges that the ordeal is far from over.

She’s back at home after long weeks on a COVID-19 ward at Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital, followed by inpatient rehabilitation services at Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Richmond, but the Glen Allen resident has yet to regain full health.

“I have foggy moments like you wouldn’t believe,” she says by phone in early September, almost five months after she contracted the virus. She’s back at work as volunteer coordinator with AT Home Care & Hospice, but only part time. Her stamina is awful, she says: Sometimes she’s in bed at 7:30 p.m., but her sleep patterns are erratic, and at times she’s up half the night.

“I attribute it all to my COVID,” she says.

Taylor is not alone in coping with COVID-19 months after she was first infected. Such patients are being described as long-haulers. Beyond these individual patients, the virus is taking a toll on their families, society and the economy. As the pandemic approaches a year since its onset, COVID-19’s long-term impacts and implications are only now coming into focus.