Long COVID is a clinical symptomatology marked by the presence of various symptoms related to SARS-CoV-2 infection, which arise or persist even for weeks or months after recovery from COVID-19 itself.
The clinical picture can change from patient to patient and not always the noticed symptoms are immediately carried over to the previous infection. Although the impact of this variant on the population is visible and the syndrome recognized as a clinical entity, several studies are underway to better define its peculiarities, starting from the causes.
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Symptoms can vary from person to person, in general they include: persistent fatigue linked to tiredness, weakness and muscle and joint pain. Then we have the lack of appetite. Specific symptoms show themselves especially on the respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal and psychological levels. Air hunger, persistent cough.
Chest pain and tightness, tachycardia and palpitations, arrhythmias, changes in blood pressure, but also pericarditis and myocarditis. All of these can be possible symptoms. The diagnosis of long COVID is clinical and is based on a history of COVID-19 and an insufficiency of full well-being, also due to the symptoms reported.
It is therefore good that those who show symptoms attributable to long COVID or who do not feel a full recovery of their health following COVID-19, report to their general practitioner or specialist, who will guide you towards more investigations. suitable. As a rule, many of the symptoms resolve, but there are data in China that show a continuity of problems in some of the subjects two years after the acute illness. There is usually a relationship between the severity of the disease and the danger of long COVID, but the picture is also examined after moderately mild forms.
If in the initial forms of COVID-19 disease and in the subsequent ones linked to the Delta variant there was a correlation between the severity of the infection and long COVID, with the Omicron variant this evidence is no longer valid and therefore also in the case of mild infection or asymptomatic infection, even in young patients, long COVID pictures can be fixed. There is therefore currently no clear correlation between the severity of the infection and the manifestation or otherwise of long COVID.