Most people who get COVID-19 recover within a few weeks.
But months later, some continue to struggle with symptoms.
They’ve become known as the “long haulers.” The phenomenon is also called “long COVID-19” or “post-COVID-19 syndrome.”
“As things progress, hopefully the terminology will settle on one or another,” said Dr. Matthew J. Ashley, a neurologist at the Centre for Neuro Skills in California.
Whatever you call it, the long-term effects of COVID-19 are estimated to affect 25 to 30 percent of people who’ve had the disease.
“It’s hard to define what really belongs in this category,” Ashley told Healthline.
“There are a lot of emerging and serious long-term consequences of COVID-19 that relate back to the illness but are separate and distinct things,” he said, “such as stroke, heart attack, anoxic brain injury, Guillain-Barré syndrome, pulmonary embolism, DVT, etc., that occur in some patients because of COVID-19 and its consequences.”
“Then there are the unfortunate people who end up spending weeks in the hospital and ICU who experience associated complications from that, including post-ICU syndrome, PTSD, or the like,” Ashley added. “Whether this is part of the ‘long-hauler’ syndrome or not, it certainly causes significant long-term consequences for people and deserves attention.”