Living with Long COVID:

Long COVID’s Impact

Overview

Long COVID has been called “a silent epidemic”¹⁰ and a potential “mass disabling event.”¹¹ But what does this impact look like at the scale of one person’s life?

The intensity and nature of the impact Long COVID has on people’s lives varies dramatically. This variance is caused primarily by two factors:

Illustration of a group of diverse people sitting outdoors together on a blanket, representing a community impacted by Long COVID.

1. Severity of Long COVID:

Here, “severity” encompasses the nature and intensity of the symptoms and health impacts experienced, as well as their duration over time. Some people experience mild symptoms, while others experience physically and cognitively debilitating ones.

Some of the most common symptoms include: fatigue, post-exertional malaise, hair loss, chronic pain, cognitive dysfunction (“brain fog”), neurological tremors, depression, anxiety, cardiac impairment, pulmonary impairment, and an altered sense of taste or smell.¹² However, the list of potential symptoms someone with Long COVID may experience is in the hundreds. Long COVID can also lead to the onset of other chronic conditions, including diabetes, myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and heart disease.¹³

Long COVID symptoms may be experienced for a few months or weeks but dissipate with time. Other symptoms may be experienced for many months or even years, and while they may fluctuate, they do not disappear. Although people with a more severe initial infection are more likely to develop Long COVID, Long COVID symptoms can arise in anyone who had COVID-19, regardless of the severity of their initial infection.¹⁴