What is Long COVID?

People with long COVID have a wide range of symptoms that can last more than four weeks or even months after infection. All the long-term effects of COVID together are called post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or PASC. People often ue the term long COVID to talk about PASC.

UAB and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are committed to finding answers about the COVID-19 infection. Our researchers are working to learn more about the long-term effects of COVID so we can help prevent and treat them.

what is long covid uab recover study

Common Symptoms of Long COVID

Long-term effects of COVID may be different for everyone and they can affect many different parts of the body, such as the brain, heart, and lungs. And people who have long-term effects, can have different kinds of symptoms. These effects may come and go, and they may last for a few weeks, a few months, or longer.

Some common effects include:

Coughing or feeling short of breath
Loss of smell or change in taste
Fever
Body aches, headaches, chest pain, or stomach pain
Brain fog (feeling like you can’t think clearly)
Having trouble sleeping
Feeling very tired
Mood changes

What the UAB RECOVER Study Aims to Learn

How SARS-CoV-2 cause long-term effects?

 

Understanding why the virus can lead to long-term effects will help UAB researchers develop effective treatments.

How many people have had long-term effects of COVID?

 

More than 490 million people around the world have had COVID. It’s possible that many millions of them have long COVID.

Does getting COVID make people more likely to develop other health conditions?

 

UAB already knows that COVID can cause long-term effects, but we’re working to understand if COVID makes people more likely to develop other health conditions.

Why do some people who get COVID have long-term effects but others don’t?

 

We’re still learning how personal characteristics like age, gender, race or ethnicity, and health status may be related to long-term effects.

How does PASC affect different groups of people?

 

In many ways, communities of color have been hit hardest by COVID. By including people of all races and ethnicities, genders, ages, and locations in research, we can gain a better understanding of how PASC affects everyone.