Should People Be More Worried About Long COVID? -- Interview with Dr. Eric Topol

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Video with Transcript at:

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/982506

Maggie Fox: Welcome. I'm Maggie Fox, consulting editor to WebMD and Medscape. I'm here with Dr Eric Topol, editor-in-chief at Medscape. We're talking about long COVID, which affects at least 13% of people after they've been infected with COVID, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That adds up to millions of people who could be affected by severe fatigue, heart symptoms, brain symptoms (known commonly as brain fog), and a range of other problems.

There's no specific treatment, and it's not clear how long some of these people will be sick. Yet, Americans in general appear to have largely given up on protecting themselves from COVID. Dr Topol, I wanted to talk to you about that. Is that something people should be thinking about when they're deciding what their own risks are?

Eric J. Topol, MD: Well, first, Maggie, it's great to be with you, particularly on this important topic. Long COVID is not getting nearly enough regard of its importance and, as you mentioned, the lack of any treatment. It's a really vexing situation where we have millions of people, and we don't have anything to offer except supportive type things. The real issue here is that at the moment, we aren't doing enough to give the recognition to these people that this is a serious matter that we want to avoid.

The only way to avoid long COVID is to not get infected, or, if you've had COVID, to not get infected again because there's still risk even if you've had a prior infection. Why should you go all out to keep yourself protected? Because you don't want to get this, and the problem is that it's unpredictable.

It chiefly affects people with mild to moderate COVID. People in their 30s and 40s are the group that are showing up with these protracted symptoms. They can be quite debilitating. There's only one surefire way of preventing it, which is not getting infected. The vaccine and boosters provide some protection, but it's not entirely clear whether it's 50% (more or less). But there is some protection, and that's another reason to stay up with vaccines and boosters.