David Manuel, David Norcliffe and Bernie Benson look at the prevalence of, and literature around, long COVID since the pandemic and consider measuring plasma viscosity as a diagnostic tool.
COVID-19, officially termed Coronavirus disease 2019, can be a severe viral illness.1 The virus responsible for this disease is Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, commonly abbreviated as SARS-CoV-2. Structurally the coronavirus has spikes containing proteins. The transmission of this virus commenced worldwide in late 2019 and rapidly developed into a global pandemic by the year 2020.
The disease COVID-19 is highly infectious and can cause a diverse variety of problems. It is spread primarily through infected droplets or saliva and aerosol discharge during coughing and sneezing.2 COVID-19 has been the causative agent implicated in over several million deaths worldwide during the pandemic.
Patients with coronavirus disease predominantly present with a respiratory tract infection. A proportion of these patients progress to a more severe and systemic disease, characterised by treatment-resistant pyrexia, acute lung injury with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), haematological manifestation, sepsis, followed by multiple organ failure with increased mortality.
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