[joelfmi]

According to the University of Washington's Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, in the first two years of the pandemic women were twice as likely as men to develop long COVID, and 15% of all of those affected at three months continued to experience symptoms beyond 12 months.

An analysis of thousands of health records by the RECOVER trial found that non-Hispanic white women in wealthier areas were more likely than others to have a long COVID diagnosis.

Three years later, at least 65 million people worldwide are estimated to have long COVID, according to an evidence review published last month in Nature Reviews Microbiology. More than 200 symptoms have been linked to the syndrome - including extreme fatigue, difficulty thinking, headaches, dizziness when standing, sleep problems, chest pain, blood clots, immune dysregulation, and even diabetes.

Scientists are still working out why some people infected with COVID develop long-term symptoms, but syndromes like this are not new. Other infections such as Lyme disease can result in long-term symptoms, many of which overlap with long COVID.

Leading theories of the root causes of long COVID include the virus or viral proteins remaining in the tissues of some individuals; the infection causing an autoimmune response; or the virus reactivating latent viruses, leading to inflammation that damages tissue.