Benjamin Mazer

… So much about long COVID remains mysterious: The condition is hard to study, difficult to predict, and variously defined to include a disorienting range and severity of symptoms. But the numbers above imply ubiquity—a new plait in the fabric of society …

As experts and advocates have observed, the emergence of long COVID would best be understood as a “mass disabling event” of historic proportions, with the health-care system struggling to absorb an influx of infirmity, and economic growth blunted for years to come.