Dr. Fauci Has Warned of These COVID Symptoms

The most recent variants of COVID-19 have seemingly evolved to be milder, especially if you're vaccinated and boosted. But one factor hasn't changed: Contracting COVID puts you at risk of developing long-lasting symptoms, a.k.a. long COVID, and a study released this week indicate that vaccines aren't much protection. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, has warned about some of these potential symptoms. Read on to find out more—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had COVID.

Fauci described long COVID as "lingering symptoms well beyond what you would expect from any post-viral syndrome like influenza and others. It's fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle aches, dysautonomia, sleep disturbances, and what people refer to as brain fog. That can last anywhere from weeks to months." He noted that 25% to 35% of people who are infected with the coronavirus will develop long COVID. 

Since the earliest reports of long COVID surfaced, one of the most commonly reported symptoms was fatigue. Fauci has previously compared long COVID to chronic fatigue syndrome. "You can see people who've recovered who really do not get back to normal, that they have things that are highly suggestive of myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome—brain fog, fatigue and difficulty in concentrating," he said earlier in the pandemic.

A recent large study found that people who've had COVID have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes up to a year later. "There are a number of factors that seem to be associated in recent studies with long COVID, ranging from things like type 2 diabetes to viral load," said Fauci during a press briefing in February. "We don't really understand very much, but we're learning literally on a week-by-week, month-by-month basis." 

Could long COVID be caused by the virus never entirely clearing the body?  In testimony before Congress in January, Fauci said that one study indicated that autopsies of some people who died of COVID found fragments of the virus still present in the body. "There was what seems to be a persistence in multiple organ systems indicating that even if you clear the virus, one of the possibilities—and I have to emphasize possibility, because it needs to be validated—is that you don't completely clear the fragments of the virus and you have continual stimulation," he said. "Not that you're infectious or that you're going to infect anybody else, but that it is still generating perhaps an aberrant response in your immune system."

Follow the fundamentals and help end this pandemic, no matter where you live—get vaccinated ASAP; if you live in an area with low vaccination rates, wear an N95 face mask, don't travel, social distance, avoid large crowds, don't go indoors with people you're not sheltering with (especially in bars), practice good hand hygiene, and to protect your life and the lives of others, don't visit any of these 35 Places You're Most Likely to Catch COVID.6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

And to protect your life and the lives of others, don't visit any of these 35 Places You're Most Likely to Catch COVID.