Right, huge apologies for the mega long post. Article in today’s Telegraph. I did try to link it but it’s behind a paywall. I’ve taken the the liberty to copy and paste as I reckon quite a few of you would be interested to read:
“It’s been almost six weeks since Dr Jennifer Cassidy first became ill with coronavirus. A generally healthy 32-year-old employed as an academic at the University of Oxford, she would have expected to bounce back relatively quickly from what we are told is usually a mild illness when contracted by those her age. Yet Dr Cassidy, who was admitted to hospital twice with the virus, has still not fully recovered.
“I don’t feel sick, I don’t feel like I have a temperature or anything, but when I started to become better, I was like, ‘ok, that’s it,’ and went full steam ahead, getting work done and trying to go for a daily walk,” she says. “I pushed it a little too far but just presumed this wouldn’t [set back] my recovery. But last Sunday, a week into doing that, I can’t describe how tired I was. It was one of the worst days of the whole episode. It was like an out of body experience. I’d never been so tired in my entire life. I did a 15-minute walk to get shopping and I could hardly make it back.” Dr Cassidy, from Dublin originally, is among an indeterminate number ofcoronavirus patientswho, many weeks after their symptoms first appeared, are still struggling to shake them off entirely. These aren’t people who are fighting for their lives in hospital; they’re not necessarily old or suffering from underlying health conditions (Dr Cassidy had previously had surgery from which she’d promptly recovered). But a growing body of anecdotal evidence suggests the virus can have a long tail, and recovery from it can take far longer than many of us might have imagined.
The novelty of the virus means relatively little research exists on howlong recoverycan take, but according to NHS guidelines, those with mild symptoms should not leave home for at least seven days. In mid-February, a report of the World Health Organisation-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease found that “Using available preliminary data, the median time from onset to clinical recovery for mild cases is approximately 2 weeks and is 3-6 weeks for patients with severe or critical disease.”
But the lived experience of a number of those who have had what would be classed as mild cases is that it can take far longer. Diane*, 47, from London, is on day 38 of the illness and still suffering from some of the symptoms. After contracting the virus, she experienced a range of respiratory complaints, struggling to breathe and enduring pains in her chest. When given medical advice by her GP over the phone, she was told she “probably had mild pneumonia” but didn’t need hospital treatment.
Now, she says: “I’m basically better but yesterday I started having all the breathing issues again. I was coughing and my airways and throat felt like they were full of cotton wool. It’s one step forward, two steps back. Just when you think you’re over it, it returns.”
Friends of hers who believe they have also had the virus have reported similar experiences. “One who thought she was better woke up in the middle of the night having convulsions in her legs. She’s got chest pains that refuse to go away three weeks in,” she says.
“At the start, we were led to believe that unless you were over 70 and had an underlying condition it was going to be a mild illness. But if you’re struggling to breathe, it’s freaky.”
Diane’s husband, who has had the virus for slightly longer than her and more severely (albeit not requiring hospital treatment), is also still suffering from breathing problems and is feeling exceptionally tired. “He’s 52 but he’s really fit, he’s not overweight, and normally he rarely gets ill,” says Diane.
Concerned about why she was still not back to normal, even more than a month on, Diane joined anonline support groupset up by New York writer and yoga teacher Fiona Lowenstein for those experiencingCovid-19 symptomsor recovering from the virus. She says it is filled with thousands of Britons and Americans discussing the surprising longevity of their symptoms, and the anxiety this has provoked. “It’s unbelievable,” she says. “There are about 25 threads and one is called ‘30 days plus’. Lots of people are posting about how they’ve still got numerous symptoms and their relief at finding out that they’re not alone. There’s a lot of mental health issues being discussed too, people are scared and anxious. The Americans in the group are being given some medical attention, but in the UK people feel like they’ve been left high and dry with no medical care at all unless they’re at death’s door.”
Experts say it’s too early to conclude anything specific about the course of recovery in people with Covid-19, because the effects of the virus vary enormously between individuals and more research needs to be done. But the British Lung Foundation points out that it can take weeks or months to recover from any pneumonia and get back to normal. As well as having a cough and breathlessness, fatigue is also common for such patients, the charity says.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter, says we’re learning new things about coronavirus all the time, but that it’s well known some people with an illness will remain infected - and infectious - for a much longer period than others.
“The majority [of cases] I feel would be between seven to 14 days but I expect a significant number to be at the extremes of that,” he says. “I also feel that with more knowledge accumulating, the infectiousness, the length of illness, and the period of infectiousness may be quite variable and different in different people.”
So how can those recovering from Covid-19 at home determine when they can safely leave the house without risking spreading the virus? “The truthful answer is we don’t know [if we’ve stopped being infectious],” says Dr Pankhania, who has worked as a senior consultant in communicable disease control. “Beyond the one month stage, I think you’re symptomatic but not infectious. You’re symptomatic because you’re recovering from the virus. “Could you be infectious after the first two weeks? Yes. By the third week? Maybe. By the fourth week? Possibly. With the passage of days the infectiousness does diminish. I would conjecture that you’re only infectious in the early period.”
Generally speaking, most people seem to make a good recovery within two months although some seem to have signs and symptoms that last for much longer, he adds.
Earlier this month, it was reported that 51 patients who had recovered from coronavirus in South Korea had tested positive again, suggesting thevirus could be reactivated. Scientists at the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at the time they believed the virus may lie dormant in human cells. But Dr Pankhania says there’s currently no conclusive evidence the virus remains dormant in your body and then reactivates.
Dr Cassidy, who had been warned her immune system could be slightly compromised since she’d had brain surgery, recognises she is one of the lucky ones: although a few weeks ago all she could focus on was being able to breathe, she has survived the virus. But, as someone who even after surgery was back at work within days, she naturally feels frustration that many weeks after her coronavirus started she still can’t function as normal. “I’m really annoyed that I can’t concentrate, and I’m so tired,” she says. “Sometimes you feel like, ‘oh, I’m insane, or maybe I’m just lazy,’ because everyone’s saying you should be productive and so on. [My doctor] said ‘you’ve had a really bad bout of it and it’s going to take a while to recover,’ but that was just one voice.”
Few others have been quite so frank about the toll it can take on the body, she feels.
“It’s played down unless it’s very deathly,” she says. “But there is a middle ground.”