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How Many People Get Long Covid?
Why the answer is more complicated than you might think
Of the many ongoing issues in the pandemic, one of the most difficult is Long Covid. Despite being a serious condition plaguing many people who recover from their initial Covid-19 infections, particularly for those who suffer debilitating, long-lasting symptoms, Long Covid is nevertheless often invisible, hard to diagnose, and even harder to treat. There are endless terrifying stories online about previously healthy people who were struck down, sometimes after quite mild initial Covid-19 infections, with persistent disabling symptoms.
In other words, Long Covid is a serious problem, and something that we as a society need to grapple with as a consequence of the pandemic.
Recently, there has been a very tumultuous debate about a key point — how many people do we expect to get Long Covid after their initial infections? Headlines abound with terrifying statistics implying that nearly everyone will eventually get this condition, that more than 1/3 of Covid-19 sufferers are still suffering, and that we are all essentially doomed to be sick.
