Stop using misleading and harmful term “long covid,” says Queensland’s Chief Health Officer

References to “long covid” should be scrapped according to Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Dr. John Gerrard after new research found long-term symptoms associated with the virus are the same as other viral infections.

Dr. Gerrard has called for the term “long covid” to be scrapped based on research which found the syndrome may not be the distinct and severe illness it was first believed to be.

He said health officials recognise the ongoing effects suffered by people who have had covid-19 as real but they are not unique to the virus.

Queensland Health research compared the recovery of patients with covid against those with flu and other respiratory illnesses a year after infection.

The health department surveyed 5,112 patients over 18 years old, comprising 2,399 with covid, 995 with influenza and 1,718 patients with symptoms of a respiratory infection but who had neither covid nor influenza.

The results were published in a press release.  It found similar rates of moderate-to-severe functional limitations in the daily lives of people 12 months after a covid infection compared to seasonal flu and other respiratory illnesses. 

Overall, 16% reported ongoing symptoms and 3.6% reported moderate-to-severe impairment in their daily activities. The 3% of the study participants who had ongoing impairments after covid infection was similar to the 3.4% with ongoing impairments after influenza.

Off the back of these results, the authors said long covid “manifested as a post-viral syndrome indistinguishable from influenza and other respiratory illnesses”.

Dr Gerrard called for the term “long covid” to stop being used entirely.

“Furthermore, we believe it is time to stop using terms like ‘long covid’,” he said. “It implies that there is something particularly sinister and ominous about covid-19.” 

“Our evidence suggests that there isn’t, that it is not dissimilar to other viruses. That does not mean that you can’t get these persistent symptoms following covid-19, but you’re no more likely to get it after covid than with other respiratory viruses,” Dr. Gerrard said.

“[Those using the term ‘long covid’] wrongly imply there is something unique and exceptional about longer-term symptoms associated with this virus. This terminology can cause unnecessary fear, and in some cases, hypervigilance to longer symptoms that can impede recovery,” he explained.

In a press conference on Friday, Dr. Gerrard said: “I want to make it clear that the symptoms that some patients described after having covid-19 are real, and we believe they are real. What we are saying is that the incidence of these symptoms is no greater in covid-19 than it is with other respiratory viruses, and that to use this term ‘long covid’ is misleading and I believe harmful.”

The research, co-authored by Dr. Gerrard, will be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (“ECCMID”) in Barcelona this April.

The findings add to previous research by the same authors and published in BMJ Public Health which found no difference in ongoing symptoms and functional impairment when covid was compared with influenza, 12 weeks post-infection.

Dr. Gerrard was appointed Chief Health Officer for Queensland Health in December 2021 and was the lead medical specialist in two international covid responses: the Diamond Princess cruise ship outbreak in Japan in February 2020 and the Dutch Antilles in early 2021.

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