Case studies

Case studies

1) 'I actually wrote my will' --Louise Barnes feared she might not survive

Louise Barnes, 46, from Suffolk, is among the many patients who are still paying the price of contracting suspected coronavirus three months on.

The former teacher has described the “terrible” symptoms she still suffers, including night shakes so violent she likened them to a seizure, nausea, tinnitus and tightness in the chest.

Ms Barnes, a so-called “long tail” patient, was only swabbed once for Covid because in the early days, hospitals were not routinely testing suspected cases.

She said the long-term effects had evoked such feelings of loneliness that she set up a support group online, which has almost 1,000 members, almost all of whom are experiencing similar effects.

“It was just assumed, when I first fell ill, that you would go on to recover. People were talking about recovery within one or two weeks but what’s actually still happening is really frightening.”

Ms Barnes, who has an autoimmune condition, first developed Covid symptoms on March 18, including a piercing “ice pick” headache, scratchy sore throat and tightness in her chest.

After speaking to NHS 111 and completing an online assessment, an ambulance came to her house and ended up taking her to hospital due to her fever, and she was kept in overnight.

She was swabbed and sent home the next day but never got the result as the test proved faulty. But she has continued to suffer and has twice returned to hospital.

“The pressure on my lungs was horrendous,” she said. “I actually wrote my will. I didn’t think I’d survive it at all.”

She said many members of her post-Covid group had had antibody tests but that the results almost always came back negative, even for those diagnosed with the virus.

“It’s very lonely,” she added. “There is not much support and we need more help. How many others out there are feeling like this and think it’s just them?

“A lot of people’s family don’t believe that they are still ill. The symptoms come and go but I don’t seem to be getting better and am very concerned about the future.”

2) 'I was short of breath for months' --Prof Peter Piot took months to recover

Prof Peter Piot, director of the London School of Tropical Medicine, is one of the world’s leading experts in viruses.

He fell ill with Covid three months ago, with a high fever and splitting headaches, and was admitted to hospital for oxygen treatment. Prof Piot is among those who suffered long-term consequences for months.

He said many others - potentially including Boris Johnson, who was in intensive care with Covid - may struggle to get over the illness, and be left feeling drained of energy.

“Many people have after the acute phase … after the virus is being brought under control, it has long-term consequences. In my case, my lungs became rigid, and that was as a result of the inflammatory response of the body. That caused me to be short of breath for months and so many people have other problems, chronic lung problems, kidney failure,” he told the BBC Andrew Marr show.

Asked whether the Prime Minister was likely to be able to cope with the sort of hours demanded by his job, having been critically ill with Covid, Prof Piot said it “it all depends how good a team you have around you.”

He said: “It's certainly not exactly the same type of energy that you can put in [afterwards]. But you know things are really improving quite rapidly in some cases; not at all in others. Some people will have months and months of chronic fatigue. I’m not familiar with the Prime Minister’s condition so I don’t know.”

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