We haven’t produced any epidemiological studies other than the app. He adds: “We are the country that invented epidemiology. “There is a whole other side to the virus which has not had attention because of the idea that ‘if you are not dead you are fine.’” “These people may be going back to work and not performing at the top of their game,” Spector says. Thus far the government is not collecting information on those in the community with ostensibly “mild” but often debilitating symptoms – a larger group than those in critical care. There is good clinical data available for patients who end up in hospital. Spector estimates that about 200,000 of them are reporting symptoms which have lasted for the duration of the study, which is six weeks. This allows anyone who suspects they have the disease to input their symptoms daily some 3 to 4 million people are currently using it, mostly Britons and Americans. Spector is head of the research group at King’s College London which has developed the Covid-19 tracker app. Prof Tim Spector, of King’s College London, estimates that a small but significant number of people are suffering from the “long tail” form of the virus. It’s like driving around with a handbrake on for six to nine months.” The best parallel is dengue fever, Garner suggests – a “ghastly” viral infection of the lymph nodes which he also contracted. It’s unclear whether long-term means two months, or three or longer. The textbooks haven’t been written.”Īccording to the latest research, about one in 20 Covid patients experience long-term on-off symptoms. “The virus is certainly causing lots of immunological changes in the body, lots of strange pathology that we don’t yet understand. Since his piece was published, Garner has received emails and tearful phone calls from grateful readers who thought they were going mad. “Their partners wonder if there is something psychologically wrong with them.”Ībout 3 to 4 million people are using the C-19 symptom tracker app. A lot of people start doubting themselves,” he says. It was a sort of virus snakes and ladders. Each time Garner thought he was getting better the illness roared back. He had a muggy head, upset stomach, tinnitus, pins and needles, breathlessness, dizziness and arthritis in the hands. The professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine says his experience of Covid-19 featured a new and disturbing symptom every day, akin to an “advent calendar”. And that its effects can be agonisingly prolonged: in Garner’s case for more than seven weeks. There is growing evidence that the virus causes a far greater array of symptoms than was previously understood. Instead it went on and on – a rollercoaster of ill health, extreme emotions and utter exhaustion, as he put it in a blog last week for the British Medical Journal. He assumed his illness would swiftly pass. This is the cluster of patients who contracted Covid-19 in the 12 days before the UK finally locked down. Garner refers to himself wryly as a member of the “Boris Johnson herd immunity group”.
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