Three years in, the pandemic mania has settled to a rumbling hum. We’re back to sweating on each other in nightclubs, spluttering out birthday candles, and sharing firm handshakes. Covid-19, while still very much alive, has for most people diminished to an everyday threat, thanks to vaccines and treatments.
The same can’t be said of long Covid, the mysterious, life-limiting ailment that lingers on after an initial Covid infection. For the millions besieged by it, their situation has remained much the same. “We still have no established tools to help treat patients,” says Linda Geng, codirector of the Post-Acute Covid-19 Syndrome Clinic at Stanford University. Estimates of how many people have long Covid vary, but it’s been put as high as around 65 million—about the same as the population of France.
It’s only now, over three years into the pandemic, that a consensus on…
