We've entered year three of the pandemic, and experts still know very little about long Covid, including how to cure its symptoms.
At this stage, even providing an estimate of how many people have long Covid is tough because symptoms vary, says Robert Gallo, co-founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who was one of the conference's panelists. .
Anecdotally, we know that many people are experiencing Covid symptoms long after infection, and data analyzed by the CDC in June shows that 7.5% of adults in the U.S.
Currently, the agency defines long Covid as a condition that causes long-term effects as a result of an initial Covid-19 infection.
Recent survey data, analyzed by the CDC, was able to determine that women and people aged 50 to 59 are more likely to experience long Covid than their counterparts
"I'm cautiously optimistic that given the amount of attention that people are bringing to long Covid that we're going to get some answers and hopefully some interventions that help people," Rubin says