The UK Government's chief medical adviser has warned that rates of long COVID are likely to increase, particularly among young people. Long COVID is the term for long-lasting health effects after having contracted COVID, even if the infection itself has passed.
Professor Chris Whitty said the two ways to prevent this are to keep COVID rates down, and to make sure everyone is vaccinated so they get a mild version of the disease. His concerns were echoed by the head of NHS membership organisation NHS Providers, who said there were concerns over the number of unvaccinated young people getting mild symptoms upon first contracting the disease, but then developing much more severe long COVID-type symptoms afterwards.
Chris Hopson said the long-term health consequences are not yet fully understood, so we all need to be careful and remain aware of the risks.