Up to 5% may get long Covid, top NI doctor says

The chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Northern Ireland, Dr Tom Black said 10% of people continue to show symptoms after five weeks, while 5% of people continue to show symptoms after 12 weeks.

Speaking to BBC Radio Foyle on Friday, Dr Black explained: “We [the BMA] have been highlighting this for about nine or ten months, highlighting the fact we’ve seen patients and in particular doctors trying to come back to work and suffering chest pains and shortness of breath, and then having to take off again.

“We have been doing surveys throughout the last year so we have a good idea of how many people it affects. What the statistics are showing now is that 10% after five weeks still have the symptoms, and about 5% of people after 12 weeks. That’s an awful lot of people in our community.”

Dr Black explained that some of the symptoms could be attributed to physical lung damage from the infection, although issues related to th body’s own immune response could also be at play.

“To some extent this is still an evolving subject,” he said.

“There is something above and beyond the physical damage. If you wanted something similar you would be looking at chronic fatigue syndrome or what used to be called ME 20 or 30 years ago.

“It’s a similar situation where ME sufferers very often would have had a viral illness, such as glandular fever, and then for a very long time afterwards were fatigued, breathless, etcetera.”

Dr Black added: “It’s looking like the long Covid is an immune response, not just the physical damage.”