Long COVID or post COVID-19 syndrome, 2021, Lechner-Scott et al

SARS-COV- 2 is now recognized to be responsible not only for a lung condition but a multi-organ syndrome (Ramakrishnan et al., 2021).
After the initial acute infection, like many other viral disorders, a multitude of long-lasting symptoms have been described. Although widely discussed in social media the evidence around this new syndrome is scarce. A provisional definition would be persistent symptoms and potential sequelae beyond four weeks from onset, of which the main features are breathlessness, cognitive impairment, fatigue, anxiety and depression (Ramakrishnan et al., 2021). The often mentioned “brain fog” is characterised by difficulties with concentration, memory and executive function (Carfì et al., 2020). Post-viral syndrome is more common in depressed patients but can occur after a number of viral infections, for example EBV, HSV and HTLV (Burrell et al., 2017).
Reports of the prevalence of ongoing symptoms after COVID infection range from 32.6% to 87% of hospitalised patients. (Nalbandian et al., 2021; Bell et al., 2021).
In a non-hospitalised cohort, 37% report fatigue and 30% cognitive impairment (Chopra et al., 2021). In Wuhan, China, 76% of infected patients were still troubled with at least one symptom after 6 months after discharge (Huang et al., 2021). A Melbourne study found persistent symptoms in 34% even after 45 weeks (COVID, COVID, 2021). These raw data may just reflect local conditions and are unadjusted for standard variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, employment, social deprivation, medications that are sedating, and co-morbidities such as diabetes, obesity and vascular disease.

Open access, https://www.msard-journal.com/article/S2211-0348(21)00535-6/fulltext#

 

Further quote from the paper:
The cause of this post-viral syndrome is not known, though it does resemble chronic fatigue syndrome, now called post viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS)

 

I love how those small errors that are so easy to verify creep through so often, a basic failure to respect the linear passage of time, especially how few people actually use the PVFS anymore. Well, more like hate, but they do suggest that many, and I do mean many, substantial errors must be present all throughout scientific literature if something this basic can get through.

This is the first mention I remember seeing of brain fog affecting executive function. About damn time. But it is worrying how there can be some acknowledgement of that "brain fog", still often used in quotes, without any concern over how absurd it is to simply not bother giving names to common symptoms of illness. Because we all know that the fact that medicine has refused to do that (or is simply unable to, probably closer to the truth) is used to trivialize it, after all if it were important medicine would have formalized a name a long time ago, so it can't be important. QED.

As much as it's frustrating to see how little learning actually makes its way to patients, I'm starting to see some small nuggets of actual accurate facts here and there. Like yesterday I saw a short interview where a physician was describing the early course, how for some there is a mild acute illness, a short pause in symptoms, the the LC symptoms rage in, while in others there is no pause, just a continuation and increase in symptoms, with a lot of other cases falling somewhere in between. It was actually accurate, not close to but actually right on. Which at the 18+ months mark remains deeply embarrassing, the standards are abysmally low here, but it's somewhat slowly happening, probably, in places.

 

"PVFS...."