A recent survey among Quebec healthcare workers demonstrated that the cumulative risk of developing long COVID from an acute infection is 17% and increases with each infection. The estimated prevalence of long COVID in this population was 5.6%. Other research places the global risk as high as 40% among healthcare workers who have contracted an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. …

Nevertheless, many healthcare workers still don’t believe that long COVID is real, despite dramatically disabling symptoms in people with no preexisting risk factors. “The me before and the me now are such opposites,” said Pinard. “I would swim three mornings a week before going to the office. I was running 40 km. I was traveling every second week. Now I leave my house only every 2-3 months….I was where I was supposed to be [with COVID vaccination]. I was in good health. I wasn’t depressed; I wasn’t anxious.” …

Hulme and other interested parties have tried to help build the infrastructure needed to provide care for patients with long COVID, but they have faced many barriers. Although the condition shares many features with fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, guidelines for those conditions could not mention long COVID by provincial government decree. “There are many, many political reasons as to why [long COVID] should not become a big deal,” said Hulme. “There are still little pockets of money for research, but they are very small.”