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I have long Covid and despair that the UK government ignores its blight | Ravi Veriah Jacques
I’m 23 and have been seriously ill for a year. Why don’t we spend more on treating this debilitating disease?
Britain’s next public health crisis is already looming: long Covid. The numbers are stark. According to the Office for National Statistics, 1.5 million people in the UK have long Covid, 281,000 of whom are so ill that their ability to undertake day-to-day activities has been limited “a lot”. That’s roughly the population of Bradford.
I know first hand how debilitating long Covid can be. I’m only 23. Before Covid struck, I had just graduated from Stanford University and was halfway through a master’s degree at Tsinghua University, Beijing, as a Schwarzman scholar. However, I’ve been seriously ill for a full year. My main symptom has been an intense fatigue that has forced me to spend up to 16 hours a day in bed and, when I do get up, I can’t do any strenuous activity without my symptoms worsening. Long Covid has put my life almost completely on hold.
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