By Dr. Stephanie LaVergne, Colorado State University — The Conversation US — 17 February 2021
About one in three people with COVID-19 will have symptoms that last longer than the typical two weeks. Patients who were hospitalised for COVID-19 are most likely to experience long-lasting symptoms — a study found 76% of hospitalised COVID-19 patients in Wuhan still experienced symptoms six months later. Fatigue, cognitive impairment, breathing problems, headaches and loss of taste or smell are common. Even patients with mild cases who were not hospitalised can develop long COVID — 35% of non-hospitalised patients did not return to baseline health 14–21 days after symptoms began. Only 10% of people who get the flu are still sick after 14 days. The medical community is still investigating why long COVID symptoms persist.