Statement
Long Covid is an umbrella term covering a variety of different syndromes, often conflated and causing confusion among the public and the medical profession alike.
Dr Anthony Hinton suggests there is a group of patients who suffer badly from Covid 19 and end up in intensive care. These patients can have long term damage to their lungs and other organs due to the virus or from treatment received in the intensive care unit. Hinton cites another group of patients, with specific on-going problems, such as tinnitus or anosmia. A positive test for Covid will usually result in these patients being classified as long Covid sufferers, although the cause of the symptoms is not always clear and may have been present before.
More generally, whether there has been a positive or negative test, people can suffer from Covid or not and then have some or many of over 200 symptoms which can come and go for many months. It is difficult to arrive at a proper understanding of the situation when there is little analysis at present.