Long Covid - Are we taking it seriously enough?

Helen Clark Foundation

Long Covid affects as many as 150,000 people in New Zealand. Shockingly, they report a quality of life similar to that of patients with severe cancer or severe MS. As the focus on Covid-19 has waned and the public has largely returned to ‘normal’, many patients and health experts worry that the debilitating burden of long Covid is going unacknowledged. Public efforts to reduce transmission have largely stalled, yet each new case of long Covid has a profound and potentially life-long impact on patients and their whānau, as well as on our wider health and economic system.