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In mid-March, Paul Garner developed what he thought was “a little cough.” An infectious disease professor, Garner was discussing the new coronavirus with David Nabarro, the UK’s special envoy on the pandemic. At the end of Zoom’s call, Nabarro advised Garner to go home immediately and isolate himself. Garner did it. He felt nothing more than a “little way off.”
Days later, he found himself fighting a raging infection. It’s one he compares to being “abused by someone” or hit in the head with a cricket bat. “The symptoms were weird as hell,” he says. They included loss of smell, heaviness, malaise, tight chest, and racing heart. At one point Garner thought he was about to die. He tried Googling “fulminant myocarditis,” but he was too sick to navigate the screen.
Garner ironically refers to himself as a member of the “Boris Johnson herd immunity group.” This is the group of patients who contracted Covid-19 in the 12 days prior to the definitive closure of the United Kingdom. He assumed that his illness would pass quickly. Instead, it went on and on: a roller coaster of health problems, extreme emotions, and total exhaustion, as he put it on a blog last week for the British Medical Journal.
There is increasing evidence that the virus causes a much wider variety of symptoms than previously understood. And that its effects can last agonizingly: in the case of Garner for more than seven weeks. The professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine says his experience with Covid-19 presented a new and disturbing symptom every day, similar to an “advent calendar”.
He had a muggy head, an upset stomach, tinnitus, pins and needles, shortness of breath, dizziness, and arthritis in his hands. Every time Garner thought he was getting better, the disease recovered. It was a kind of snakes and virus ladders. “It is deeply frustrating. Many people begin to doubt themselves,” he says. “Their partners wonder if there is something psychologically wrong with them.”
Since his article was published, Garner has received tearful emails and calls from grateful readers who thought they were going crazy. “I am a public health person,” he says. “The virus is certainly causing many immune changes in the body, many strange pathologies that we still don’t understand.” This is a new disease. And a scandalous one. The textbooks have not been written. “
According to the latest research, approximately one in 20 Covid patients experiences long-term on and off symptoms. It is not clear if long-term means two months, or three or more. The best parallel is dengue fever, suggests Garner, a “horrible” viral lymph node infection that he also contracted. Dengue comes and goes. It’s like driving with a parking brake for six to nine months. “
Professor Tim Spector of King’s College London estimates that a small but significant number of people suffer from the “long tail” form of the virus. Spector is the head of the research group at King’s College London that has developed the Covid-19 tracking application. This allows anyone who suspects they have the disease to enter their symptoms daily; It is currently used by 3 to 4 million people, mostly British and American.
Spector estimates that around 200,000 of them are reporting symptoms that have lasted the duration of the study, which is six weeks. Good clinical data is available for patients who end up in the hospital. So far, the government has not collected information on those in the community with apparently “mild” but often debilitating symptoms, a larger group than those in critical care.
“These people can go back to work and not perform at the top of their game,” says Spector. “There is a completely different side of the virus that has not received attention because of the idea that” if you are not dead you are fine. ”
He adds: “We are the country that invented epidemiology. We have not produced any epidemiological study other than the application. It’s kind of embarrassing. “
As more information becomes available, the government’s Covid model appears increasingly outdated. Many Covid patients do not develop a fever or cough. Instead, they feel muscle pain, a sore throat, and a headache. The app has tracked 15 different types of symptoms, along with a distinctive “increase and decrease” pattern. “I’ve studied 100 diseases. Covid is the weirdest I’ve ever seen in my medical career,” says Spector.
Scientific explanations for what is happening are still at an early stage. Lynne Turner-Stokes, a professor of rehabilitation medicine at King’s College, says Covid is a “multi-system disease” that can potentially affect any organ. It causes microvascular problems and clots. The lungs, brain, skin, kidneys, and nervous system can be affected. Neurological symptoms can be mild (headache) or severe (confusion, delirium, coma).
Turner-Stokes says it is not clear why the disease is sometimes so long. One explanation is that the body’s immune system quickens, with a continuous reaction. Another is that the symptoms are caused by viruses. Either way, she says there may be a “flare-up of symptoms.” Or, as she also puts it in more colloquial language, “the whole caboodle comes back.”
The researchers are now collaborating across borders. They are examining the latest data from European countries before the UK in terms of a pandemic, such as Italy and Spain, as well as China. They are looking to determine what support may be needed for critically and critically ill patients, with Covid posing similar challenges to HIV / AIDS a generation ago.
Meanwhile, Covid’s “long-term” ones have been comparing notes through a Slack support group. It has # 60plus-days and # 30plus-days chat groups. The dominant feeling is the relief that others are in the same bleak situation, and that their health problems are not imaginary.
