By Will Richmond-Coggan, Partner and National Head of Data Breach Litigation, at Freeths
Saturday, March 15 is International Long Covid Awareness Day, marking five years since many countries around the world went into lockdown in response to the proliferating threat of Covid-19.
While there will be plenty of people feel who don’t feel like marking such an anniversary, for many Covid is not something they can forget or move on from, even if they wanted to.
With an increasing number of people facing an ongoing, daily battle with Long Covid part of their reality, the illness remains an ever-present burden. This is why this International Long Covid Awareness Day, I’m joining the millions across the world hoping to shine a light on this debilitating condition. As a husband and a carer to someone who is badly afflicted by Long Covid, who I see bravely battling against it on a daily basis, I am committed to raising awareness of what Long Covid is, and the effect it has on people up and down the country: the sufferers; and their carers, families, friends and colleagues.
My wife and I both caught Covid in 2020. For reasons that we still don’t fully understand, I recovered, but she never did. Her health was impaired to a greater or lesser extent from that point on, but worsened significantly after she was unfortunate enough also to contract the Omicron variant of Covid later on.
The effect of this on our family has been, and likely will continue to be dramatic. We’ve been fighting to get clarity about what might be afflicting her, eliminating a number of other possible malign diagnoses. This was before our GP would even entertain the possibility of Long Covid being the issue. Even when, belatedly, that diagnosis was made, we have had to contend with a lack of information about the condition, how it might afflict her, and what prospects (if any) there were for treatment or recovery. Most of what we have learned has been discovered through our own review of published research. My wife has been trying to wrap her head around those impenetrable medical publications, while also contending with her debilitating symptoms.
Long Covid, or as it’s sometimes known, Post-Covid Syndrome, is a condition in which the effects of Covid-19 infection last for months, or in some cases years, after someone firsts falls ill. At its worst, it is increasingly starting to look as if some of the effects may be permanent and irreversible.
The effects can take a variety of forms but, at its root, the illness looks like an auto-immune condition – where the body behaves as if it is still under continuing, constant, attack from Covid-19. Symptoms vary between individuals. Some display continuing breathing difficulties, some have altered brain chemistry, making them more vulnerable to depression or PTSD. Others, similar to my wife, have constant nerve pain throughout their body, or short-term memory loss, mobility issues or exhaustion. Many have combinations of a number of these symptoms, among many others (research has identified as many as 200 distinct symptoms, affecting almost every organ and system of the body).
The physical aspects, though, only make up part of the problem. Both for political reasons and simply because it has been overtaken by other global events, there has been efforts to put Covid firmly in the past, with many people trying to forget it ever happened. However, this leaves those who are still suffering from Long Covid feeling like they too have been left behind. Anyone who has a disability, or cares for someone with one, will know that able friends and family members can sometimes find it uncomfortable to address what is wrong. Or sometimes, perhaps they just don’t know what to say, or fear saying the wrong thing. If that is true for conditions that are well understood and publicly recognised, imagine how much harder it must be when it is a condition which is poorly understood and, indeed, dismissed as imaginary in certain quarters.
Long Covid is far from imaginary. Caring for someone who lives with it every hour of every day has cemented this for our family. But our experience is far from unique. Statistics suggest that around 6% of all people who were infected with Covid-19 have gone on to suffer from Long Covid. This translates to over 400 million globally! An unimaginable figure for a ‘forgotten’ disease.
It can be difficult to know what to do in the face of numbers like this, in the context of an illness which is still very poorly understood, and where there may be no hope of a cure being found. That’s why, five years since our lives changed forever, I’m hoping to raise awareness in the hope that some see that perhaps the additional numbers of long term ill in the workforce may well be largely accounted for by the effects of Long Covid – they aren’t just ‘work-shy’. Not only this, but to understand that it isn’t just the patient that suffers, but that families’ lives have been disrupted and changed indefinitely.
The Long Covid Support charity has been a valuable resource to families like ours, but any form of support can be shown to those around you with this diagnosis. A kind word, or something simple such as a meaningful conversation, can, and likely will, mean the world. I encourage everyone reading this, if you know someone who is battling with this difficult condition, to please reach out to them. Let them know that you are thinking of them, and ask them to talk to you about their experience. Be patient but persistent – often victims of Long Covid suffer from a combination of severe exhaustion and social anxiety, which might make them reluctant to open up about their condition, or unable to face the effort involved in talking about it. But I promise you that they will appreciate the effort, and you may be providing them with vital reassurance that the world has not moved on and forgotten them. If you can do that – this Long Covid Awareness Day, and in the weeks and months ahead – you could well be making an important difference to those sufferers’ lives.
Will Richmond-Coggan, Partner and National Head of Data Breach Litigation, at Freeths
Long Covid Support is a charity registered in England and Wales – Long Covid Support
