With the relaxing of mask mandates and other pandemic mitigations, it may seem like COVID is in the rear view mirror. But for people with so-called long COVID, it's not.
Many people continue to suffer dramatic effects of the novel coronavirus long after they've been infected, says Dr. Marc Sala, pulmonary and critical care specialist with Northwestern Medicine’s Comprehensive COVID-19 Center.
Symptoms include chronic fatigue, a persistent cough, shortness of breath, brain fog and chest discomfort.
“The majority are those who maybe had mild to moderate infections. Maybe they were in the hospital for a day, maybe not, maybe [they] dealt with it all at home and never really kicked the symptoms to the curb,” he says.
“Not only are they feeling still debilitated from their symptoms and unable to get back to the life they knew, but quite frankly, we don’t have the best solutions for them, either.”
Dr. Sala says most patients he’s seen with long COVID had not been vaccinated when they contracted the coronavirus. Others, he says, have had immune system problems.
He still strongly suggests people get vaccinated and boosted if they haven’t already.
As far as masks are concerned, Dr. Sala says it is time to start easing masking requirements, although he would have liked to have seen some kind of phasing-out of mask wearing.
He said he still intends to wear a mask when he goes to indoor places where there are a lot of people, like a grocery store. The doctor says he’s still doing it mostly for those who are not vaccinated or who are immunocompromised.
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