Queensland's Chief Health Officer says term 'long covid' generating fear

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Queensland's Chief Health Officer is calling for the term 'long covid' to be scrapped as it is generating fear in the community and implying there's something particularly ominous about covid.

Transcript

00:00 Long-term symptoms after viruses, viral infections, do occur no matter what that infection is.

00:07 That is something that is well described.

00:10 But it is no more common with COVID-19 than with the respiratory infection.

00:17 If there is a specific long-term complication associated with COVID-19, that complication

00:23 should be identified and described, whether that be something like myocarditis, that's

00:29 an inflammation of the heart muscle, transverse myelitis, inflammation of the spinal cord,

00:34 chronic fatigue syndrome, whatever that long-term effect of the virus should be identified and

00:39 described because we know those complications can occur with any viral infection.

00:45 And they have not been shown in this study to have a higher incidence in patients with

00:50 COVID-19 than with other viral infections.

00:55 I want to make it clear that the symptoms that some patients described after having

01:03 COVID-19 are real.

01:07 And we believe they are real.

01:10 What we are saying is that the incidence of these symptoms is no greater in COVID-19 than

01:16 it is with other respiratory viruses.

01:20 And that to use this term long COVID is misleading and I believe harmful.

01:28 What we have identified is that the long-term symptoms associated with COVID-19 are no different

01:37 to those experienced with other respiratory virus infections whose symptoms are also real.

01:43 But the vast majority of people, the vast majority of people who experience COVID-19

01:49 as with other viral respiratory infections of course recover to complete normal function.

01:55 And that's our experience here in Queensland.

01:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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