Long Covid Awareness Day

March 15 is Long Covid Awareness Day.

“Long Covid is a multi-systemic disease following a COVID infection, this includes severe, mild, or asymptomatic infections. Long Covid can occur in young and healthy people, including children.

The wide range of symptoms and conditions caused by Long Covid can last for weeks, months, or years.

There are currently no proven treatments or cures for Long COVID.​”

— What Is Long Covid? International Long Covid Awareness

If there were two things I wish people would understand about Long Covid, they would be:

1. People are at risk of Long Covid after each infection, regardless of how “mild” the symptoms were. That risk is cumulative; each infection increases the risk.
2. The research is young. Since there are a variety of symptoms and no tests/treatment currently, the best way to avoid Long Covid is to avoid Covid infections.

As always, I recommend a layered approach to prevention: wear high-quality respirators, clean the air, and stay up-to-date on your vaccinations, if possible.

Additional Information

Definition of Long Covid:

• The ILCA is working on a community and patient-driven definition of Long Covid, to be announced later this month
• A Long COVID Definition: A Chronic, Systemic Disease State with Profound Consequences from National Academies of Sciences
• A clinical case definition of post COVID-19 condition by a Delphi consensus, 6 October 2021 from The World Health Organization

Advocates and Communicators:

• Julia Doubleday: has Long Covid and writes The Gauntlet newsletter sharing public health information and commentary. Check out her What is Long Covid? post.
• Kelly: disabled and chronically ill writer. Check out her Long Covid Awareness Day 2026 post.
• Michael Hoerger, PhD, MSCR, MBA: Runs the great Covid-19 Data Dashboard tracking wastewater data in the US and estimating the spread
• Dr. Lucky Tran: Scientist, science communicator, public health and climate justice advocate
• Babs on Bluesky and TikTok. Check out her thread from last year’s Long Covid Awareness Day

Research:

• Long COVID in Young Children, School-Aged Children, and Teens doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.1415

  “Long COVID is common, affecting up to 10% to 20% of children with a history of COVID-19. With almost 6 million US children potentially affected, this is higher than the number of children with asthma, the most common chronic health problem in children.”

• Experiences of Canadians with long-term symptoms following COVID-19

  “As seen in Chart 2, Canadians reporting two known or suspected COVID-19 infections (25.4%) were 1.7 times more likely to report prolonged symptoms than those reporting only one known or suspected infection (14.6%), and those with 3 or more infections (37.9%) 2.6 times more likely.”

General:

• World Health Network’s Long Covid blog posts
• Post COVID-19 condition (long COVID) from the World Health Organization
• CDC: Long COVID Basics As compromised as the Department of Health and Human Services is under this regime, this page is still currently a good summary from what I can tell.
• Wikipedia: Long Covid

Previously