Long COVID is real – and complex. A major study aims to untangle its causes.

RECOVER will probably be the largest U.S. trial of its kind, says Dr. Kristine Erlandson, the infectious disease specialist who leads the study’s Colorado site. 

Critical-care medicine specialist Dr. Sarah Jolley, medical director of the UCHealth Post-COVID Clinic, is co-author of a forthcoming RECOVER-based study that assigns many of the long COVID-related maladies into five domains, she says. They include:

• ME/CFS including post-exertional malaise (PEM).
• Dysautonomia and POTS.
• Neurocognitive symptoms (such as “brain fog”).
• Cardiopulmonary exercise intolerance.
• Persistent olfactory (related to the ability to smell) problems.