Podcast: Long-COVID Questions Answered
What explains the strange constellation of symptoms that is “long COVID?” Will it ever go away? And why does vaccination seem to help? Writer F.T. Kola returns to the podcast Social Distance to recount her experience with long COVID with hosts James Hamblin and Maeve Higgins.
They’re also joined by Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist investigating long COVID at her Yale lab. She explains what we know about the condition—and how two theories about its root cause mean the difference between a cure and no clear end in sight.
Listen to their conversation here:
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What follows is a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity:
James Hamblin: This term, “long COVID”—or “long-haulers”—is used often. Is there a working definition or way that you describe it? Because it can encapsulate many different things, right?
There lies the problem already. There isn’t a universal definition of long COVID. But I think the medical community is coming to some consensus that it’s basically a post-acute viral syndrome that happens after a person has experienced infection with
