Long-COVID, A Timeline…
A collection of the development of Long-Covid in society and science.
Last Update: 28th of July, 2021
The goal of this timeline is to collect and summarize the development of Long-COVID in society and in the scientific community. The timeline will be constantly updated. Articles and/or corrections can be sent through Twitter to TSchmauck. Please cite this article for any use.
29 April 2020
Long-Haulers. The term COVID Long-Haulers is coined by Amy Watson, as she creates the Facebook group “Long Haul COVID Fighters”. She creates the group after she has been ill for 46 days.
11 May 2020
First report of persistent symptoms after COVID-19. An initiative known as “Patient-Led Research”, born out of a Slack group, released the first report on Long-Haulers. In the report it is highlighted how 89% of people dont seem to experience a constant intensity in symptoms, but rather a fluctuation.
20 May 2020
Long-COVID. The term Long-COVID is first used by Elisa Perego in a tweet.
04 June 2020
Atlantic report and mild cases. The writer of The Alantic, Ed Yong, publishes one of the first articles regarding Long-COVID. It is highlighted in here that people suffering from Long-COVID were counted “technically” as mild cases since most were not in ICU or ventilation.
10 June 2020
Zoe App Study. The Zoe App showed that 1 in 10 people had symptoms 3 weeks after initial infection.
10 July 2020
Medical doctors for long-haulers. A group of medical doctors publish an opinion piece in the British Medical Journal, where they highlight the issue that many doctors are not being supportive and/or diagnosing the patients with mental health problems as cause of the illness.
31 July 2020
35% of patients are not back to normal healthy 2–3 weeks after testing positive. This is presented in a CDC report. In addition, in people with 18–34 years old (with no chronic conditions), 1 in 5 had not returned to their normal health 14–21 days after testing positive.
7 October 2020
Long-COVID clinics to be setup in the UK. In a BBC article, it is mentioned that the head of the NHS in England will set up specialist clinics. An investment of £10m was also announced for the year.
30 October 2020
NHS Video Campaign. The NHS uploads a video on Youtube titled “Long COVID Recovery”.
22 December 2020
First signs of physiological abnormalities. The group of Bruce Patterson publishes a pre-print showing a particular signature of elevated inflammatory markers in long-COVID patients. This paper is a milestone as it shows that not all clinical tests of long haulers come back “normal”. The paper was later peer-reviewed and published in Frontiers in Immunology in 2021. A summary of the study can be find by clicking here.
27 December 2020
7 months later. The Patient-Led Research Initiative releases their second report as a pre-print. The paper was later peer-reviewed and published in EClinicalMedicine in 2021.
23 February 2021
PASC and NIH research. The director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, introduces the term PASC (Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection). In this announcement he also talks about an initiative that aims to look into why this phenomenon occurs and how to treat it.
01 March 2021
Swiss study. A pre-print is published showing that when PCR positive individuals are randomly called (6–8 months after infection) that 26% had not yet fully recovered.
12 March 2021
First insights on vaccines. In a small study published as a pre-print, scientist concluded that vaccinating long-haulers was not associated with worsening of symptoms. Even better, it was suggested that an improvement of symptoms might occur.
17 March 2021
Vaccines helping long-haulers. The connection between vaccines and long-haulers improvement escalates to popular media. The New York Times publishes an article suggesting that vaccines might be helping long-haulers alleviate their symptoms.
22 March 2021
First Review. The first large scientific review on Long-Covid is published in the journal Nature Medicine.
18 June 2021
Medicine’s blind-spot. A commentary is published in The Lancent Infectious Diseases titled “Long COVID has exposed medicine’s blind-spottitled”.
23 June 2021
Norwegian study. A study carried out in Norway published in Nature Medicine showed that 52% of non-hospitalized patients (16–30 years) in their cohort suffered from symptoms 6 months later.
25 June 2021
Higher levels of monocytes. The group of Bruce Patterson publishes another pre-print, this time they highlight that long-haulers, relative to healthy people and patients with severe COVID-19, had higher levels of certain monocytes (a type of white blood cell). In addition, they were able to find long haulers with monocytes containing the spike protein of the virus 15 months after the initial infection.
26 July 2021
Nerve damage in the eye. A study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology suggests that patients with neurological symptoms of long-COVID have nerve damage in the cornea. The level of damage correlated with the severity of the symptoms
Joe Biden & Disability. The president of the United States announces that Long-COVID could be considered a disability
