All are unproven at this point, and I think ultimately there may be several explanations for the different constellations of symptoms. MALEY: There are a few current theories related to the immune system and the manifestations of long COVID that we’re seeing. GAZETTE: What is this from? Is the virus getting into places that it doesn’t in typical COVID, into the brain, for example? Or is it from something else, the body overreacting, that lasts even after the virus is gone? So we, for the most part, can’t detect any ongoing infection. All of the patients I can think of who have done that have negative tests for their second test. Most patients who have this initial improvement and then have this worsening of symptoms often go back and get retested because they’re worried they might have gotten infected again, or they could be still infectious. They’re exhausted all day long, and they have severe difficulty doing their jobs because of memory and thinking issues, breathing discomfort, and other symptoms. Others are nine or 12 months out from their infection, and they still haven’t noticed any improvement. Some people, not uncommonly, are very slow to recover, and it takes them three to six months to get back to feeling like they have their normal level of energy and that their breathing is improving. MALEY: Groups of patients follow different time courses. They can barely breathe when they walk around, and they have these other severe symptoms that are really out of proportion to the initial symptoms. They felt like they were fine and then over the ensuing four months they are just so fatigued. Some people, for the initial two weeks of their infection, had just cold-like symptoms that lasted for three days. It can include the continuation of symptoms that happened when a person was first sick, like shortness of breath, or fatigue, or it can be new symptoms where a patient feels like they’ve improved and they’re recovering and then a month after being infected, they have worsening chest discomfort and brain fog and difficulty thinking, and all sorts of symptoms from head to toe that can either persist or develop somewhat newly after they’re infected. MALEY: Long COVID or what’s now - through the National Institutes of Health - being referred to as “post-acute sequelae of COVID-19,” is persistent symptoms or new symptoms that develop, generally speaking, at least four to eight weeks after the initial infection with COVID-19. GAZETTE: What is long COVID and how is it different from the common COVID-19 condition we’ve become familiar with over the last year? The Gazette spoke with Jason Maley, a Harvard Medical School instructor in medicine and director of BIDMC’s Critical Illness and COVID-19 Survivorship Program, to gauge what we know about the condition and what awaits discovery. Last month, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center launched a new program to provide clinical care for long haulers and to investigate the mysterious source of the condition. These patients tend to be younger and, puzzlingly, in some cases suffered just mild initial conditions. These so-called “COVID long-haulers” or sufferers of “long COVID” are those who continue to feel symptoms long after the days or weeks that represent a typical course of the disease. See masking details below.As public health officials race to vaccinate Americans amid the rapid spread of viral variants, physicians and scientists are turning their attention to a growing population of those who seem locked into COVID-19’s misery months after the acute phase has passed. There are no restrictions on social gatherings on or off campus, except for clinical-related settings. New students and faculty and staff are required to sign an updated version of the Columbia Community Compact that is available via the Reopen CU app.Ĭurrent affiliates do not need to sign this new version.
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