Kari Tikkinen and a handful of others are hoping to learn more about whether treatments given during the acute phase of Covid-19 can reduce the risk of experiencing symptoms months later. “It’s an urgent and pressing health need that people need to start focusing on," says intensive-care specialist Charlotte Summers, at the University of Cambridge, UK Debilitating symptoms Research into long Covid — which is also known as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, and is usually defined as COVID-19 symptoms that last longer than three months — has lagged behind studies of the acute phase of infection.
People who experience long COVID live with several symptoms, ranging from mild to severely debilitating. Researchers have proposed a variety of causes for the condition — from lingering viral reservoirs, to autoimmunity, to tiny blood clots.
Many think that a mix of these factors is to blame. “It took a while to get going on any serious mechanistic long-COVID research," says immunologist Danny Altmann at Imperial College London. “It’s hard to piece the big picture together." Thus far, vaccines are the best way to prevent long Covid.
COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and they might lessen the risk of long Covid after a breakthrough infection in someone who has been vaccinated.