Link
Often, long Covid patients experience mild primary infections, are never admitted to hospital and only realise there is a problem later, when the symptoms persist well beyond the usual two weeks. Some make a full recovery, some see improvements over time; others, like Brown, have seen little progress since being infected five years ago.
Olympic athletes, dancers, circus performers, actors, RAF officersand more have had their lives turned upside down by the illness; many have been left unable to work. While there are certain factors that make long Covid more likely – it appears to be more prevalent in women, those with pre-existing health conditions and people facing socioeconomic deprivation – it can affect people from any background, irrespective of age or prior fitness levels. “Long Covid can happen to anyone,” says Heightman. “Often the people we see in clinic were completely well before, and now they’re really poorly. It is more common in women, but 30-40% of our patients are men.”
The numbers of sick people leaving the UK workforce are at record highs, and there are endless articles bashing the unemployed, with titles such as “Who are the millions of Britons not working, and why?”. But these often make no mention of the words “long Covid”, and barely refer to the recent global pandemic.
In 2022, Wes Streeting was reassuring people about how seriously Labour took long Covid, but now he is health secretary it seems to have dropped off the agenda. In the Get Britain Working white paper set out last November by the Department for Work and Pensions, long Covid is not mentioned. “It feels to me like the government isn’t putting two and two together: the shortage of nurses, all the people out of work since Covid,” says Matthews. “No one seems to say, ‘Oh, it’s probably because loads of people have long Covid.’”
“I’ve given up a bit,” says Matthews. “Nobody knows what to do with us, so it feels hopeless. I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen, but I’m waiting for some big breakthrough.” If she was magically cured tomorrow, what would be the first thing she would do? “I’d go for a swim in the sea, go for a run, and then go on holiday. And maybe climb up a mountain.”