Living With the Virus!

People, with 'Long Covid', are literally 'having to live with the virus'. Danny Altmann (Imperial College London) clearly feels that urgent studies are needed to develop effective treatments for this debilitating condition (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/16/vaccines-long-covid-science). Altmann notes that circa 1.7 million people in the UK have Long Covid. These people display a recognised cluster of physiological symptoms. That cluster is evident in Long Covid patients, from all parts of the globe. Vaccines don't appear to help protect from Long Covid. Sufferers of the condition include many formerly very healthy subjects who cycled, ran, skied or danced. Altmann notes people can develop Long Covid after 2, 3 or 4 bouts of infection with Sars-CoV-2. Just because individual might have experienced a mild infection with Covid19, doesn't mean they can't develop Long Covid next time. It is very evident that repeated infections are now the norm for this rapidly mutating virus. Altmann says Long Covid sufferers need more large scale recovery trials. He points, for a start, to the Stimulate-ICP Trial at University College hospital (London). Here, treatments with antihistamines, rivaroxaban (an anti-clotting agent) and colchicine (an anti-inflammatory) are being evaluated. Failure to develop 'cures' for Long Covid would be very damaging, at many levels (personal, societal and economic)