A Negative COVID Report Is Not What You Only Want

‘Long COVID’ has upended the patient’s world

The pandemic onset was slow: the virus slowly spread across countries. The onset was like people who have just woken up: groggy, sluggish.

But as time passes, people get in the groove and go about their tasks quickly. So was the pandemic. The pandemic spread rapidly, bringing the world to a halt.

People were as clueless as doctors, scientists about how COVID was going to play out. News around the globe had different views on the pandemic.

Some news broadcasted that the virus can survive 8 hours on surfaces. By stating that the virus can survive 8 hours on a specific surface type: plastic or steel, some news overcorrected other news.

Based on these unverified reports, the government directed their resources more on sanitizing surfaces than promoting mask-wearing. Even 6–7 months into COVID, countries doubted the use of masks for preventing COVID.

Amid the pandemic uncertainty, Joanna was worried about her family’s safety. She took Covid preventing measures — bought sanitizing wipes, sanitizers, masks- hoping this would save her family from COVID.

Late April, she experienced an unusual feeling in her feet: something crawling inside her feet. She ignored it, and she had no reason to treat this as a COVID symptom because she had got a COVID negative report a few days ago.

COVID negative but symptoms persisting

But when the weird feeling in her feet persisted, she again got a COVID test done, and this time she was positive.

The doctors told her that she will recover in 2–3 weeks. Indeed, she did recover, and the COVID report was negative two weeks after she got positive.

Technically, the report indicated the virus was no longer in her body, but Joanna wasn’t her old self after contracting the virus, although she was COVID negative.

Her feet were getting worse: That weird feeling had turned into a sharp, jarring, and piercing pain. The pain was worse during the night and was a little sparing during the day.

The doctors couldn’t understand what was happening: veins bursting, autoimmune disorder.

COVID-19 has befuddled doctors. A patient has a negative COVID report, but the patient continues to suffer from the COVID symptoms.

How Medical science is treating patients suffering from long-term COVID effects?

SARS-COV 2 virus that causes COVID-19 is a novel one. The virus causes a disease that scientists, doctors are not able to completely understand.

Usually, patients recover from COVID-19 in 2–3 weeks, but COVID-19 symptoms continue to affect some patients long after they have a COVID negative report.

Doctors are trying to understand the nuances of COVID-19 as they are treating patients. Since no standard protocols exist for treating these symptoms, the doctors rely on existing treatment guidelines for diseases having similar symptoms.

In 2003, another group of coronavirus caused an outbreak. Doctors are taking cues from the experience they got by treating 2003 flu patients for dealing with COVID-19.

Initial studies and research on other coronavirus reveal that the virus may injure multiple organs and cause unknown symptoms. The researchers observed a similar pattern in patients who were infected during the 2003 SARS pandemic.

At Peking University People’s hospital in Beijing, Researchers tracked the recovery process in patients who were admitted to the hospital during the 2003 SARS outbreak.

The study concluded that even after 15 years, 4.6% of people infected by SARS had lesions on their lungs.

Further lungs of 38% of 2003 patients had decreased diffusion capacity: lungs had a decreased efficiency at transferring oxygen into the blood and removing CO2.

Symptoms that persist

Fatigue,

Body aches,

Shortness of breath,

Difficulty concentrating,

Inability to exercise,

Headache, and

Difficulty sleeping.

Joanna could never return to her former self — how she used to feel before COVID hit her. She wasn’t able to do her daily chores — cleaning, cooking, as she became exhausted when doing it.

Daily chores became strenuous for her: as strenuous as climbing the highest peak. The COVID infection deteriorated her life quality in every possible way. She no longer enjoyed doing things that once she loved to do: Reading books, going for walks.

Further, her COVID feet were taking their toll on her. She couldn’t sleep because of the pain — it was getting worse or staying the same.

Long Hauler and Long COVID

Patients who continue to suffer from COVID are called long haulers, and the condition is known as long COVID. Understanding the long-term COVID effect on patients is vital for treating patients suffering from long COVID.

Before long COVID became widespread, doctors doubted patients who complained about long-term COVID effects.

Initially, doctors viewed long COVID as a patient’s figment of imagination rather than believing in their patients and continuing their investigation.

What makes it difficult for the doctors to gauge the patient’s condition is that the patients suffering from Long COVID appear normal from the outside, their COVID report is negative, but inside, the patients feel like their body is breaking.

Besides, the doctors are overwhelmed with COVID patients needing oxygen, so they ignore patients who can at least breathe-Long COVID patients.

A CDC study recorded that 35% of respondents who tested positive for Covid-19 and had COVID-19 symptoms weren’t feeling well even after having a COVID negative report.

Now, researchers and doctors have been closely observing long haulers and trying to help them in recovering from long COVID. Government must fund studies that help doctors in treating Long Haulers.

Joanna chose to have her life ended as COVID symptoms had interfered with her lifestyle in every possible way.

She would become exhausted even if she didn’t do any strenuous work; she couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes, and even though she battled COVID symptoms for 13 months, her symptoms were not getting better.

It’s like, “You want to live, but your health makes your living painful, excruciating to an extent that you think probably dying will be better than living.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, suggested that long COVID may be the same as or similar to Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

I will be writing on COVID and ME/CFS as a follow-up to this article.