TY - JOUR T1 - Long COVID: clues about causes JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/13993003.00409-2023 VL - 61 IS - 5 SP - 2300409 AU - Felicity Liew AU - Claudia Efstathiou AU - Peter J.M. Openshaw Y1 - 2023/05/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/61/5/2300409.abstract N2 - Many patients report persistent symptoms after resolution of acute COVID-19, regardless of SARS-CoV-2 variant and even if the initial illness is mild [1, 2]. A multitude of symptoms have been described under the umbrella term “long COVID”, otherwise known as “post-COVID syndrome” or “post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC)”; for simplicity we will use the term long COVID. Symptoms are diverse but include breathlessness, fatigue and brain fog, reported to affect up to 69% of cases [3]. Long COVID can be debilitating, with 45.2% of patients requiring a reduced work schedule [4]. The World Health Organization estimates that 17 million people in Europe experienced long COVID during the first 2 years of the pandemic [5].Scott et al. examined monocyte and inflammatory profiles in patients previously hospitalised with COVID-19. They propose localised lung injury causes post-COVID breathlessness, with inflammation affecting monocytes and tissue macrophages driving fatigue. https://bit.ly/40jXs2d ER -