Definition
cases of Covid-19 where symptoms persist long after the original phase of illness
View the full definition in the Macmillan Dictionary
Origin and usage
The compound noun long covid is a very recent coinage formed from the adjective ‘long’ and the noun ‘Covid’, short for Covid-19, which itself is short for ‘Coronavirus disease 2019’.
Examples
Long covid is a recently identified condition where those who have had coronavirus, sometimes mildly, continue to experience symptoms for many months afterwards. These may include fatigue, breathlessness, and muscle and joint pain, as well as mental problems such as memory loss and lack of concentration. A study published on 7 September reported that up to 60,000 people in the UK have been suffering from long covid for more than three months. Long covid was added to our Open Dictionary in August. The Open Dictionary is a great place to record new and emerging language, as well as items that have slipped under the radar. You can add your entries here.
Quotations
“The term long Covid (also known as long-haul or long-tail) is not an official medical term.”
(independent.co.uk)
“He said that patterns in the team’s data suggested that long covid was about twice as common in women as in men.”
(bmj.com)
Browse related words in the Macmillan Thesaurus.
