The life of Aránzazu Abión, a health care provider in Barcelona, has been an ordeal since she was infected with coronavirus on February 29, 2020. It took eight months to verify that she suffered from persistent covid and that her loss of vision, hearing, permanent fatigue was not It was due to anxiety, as the first specialists he visited told him. His multiple symptoms were revived when he was re-infected in July 2021 with the delta variant and others have reappeared in November when he caught SARS-Cov-2 again, this time in its omicron version. Hers may seem like an exceptional case, but there are many patients with persistent covid who, like her, have been reinfected, especially in this sixth wave driven by the omicron variant,and that they have reactivated ailments that apparently had remitted or developed other sequelae of persistent covid. The Long Covid Acts collective, which represents these patients in Spain, and the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG) - which has developed the persistent covid clinical guide - acknowledge that, although there are confirmed cases, it is still premature to remove conclusions on the consequences of reinfections in this type of patients, but warn of the risk that the omicron variant multiplies the number of cases of post-covid syndrome, making it a public health problem of the first magnitude in the short term.and the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG) —which has developed the persistent covid clinical guide— acknowledge that, although there are confirmed cases, it is still premature to draw conclusions about the consequences of reinfections in these types of patients, but warn of the risk that the omicron variant multiplies the number of cases of postcovid syndrome, making it a public health problem of the first magnitude in the short term.and the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG) —which has developed the persistent covid clinical guide— acknowledge that, although there are confirmed cases, it is still premature to draw conclusions about the consequences of reinfections in these types of patients, but warn of the risk that the omicron variant multiplies the number of cases of postcovid syndrome, making it a public health problem of the first magnitude in the short term.
"We are in a phase of uncertainty and concern about what the consequences of the omicron variant may entail, but given the shortage of time that has elapsed since its appearance, we do not have data to confirm the worsening in the case of persistent covid or appearance of new
long covid patients
”, Says Dr. Lorenzo Armenteros, spokesman for Covid-19 of the SEMG.
Armenteros does point out the enormous concern generated by the excess number of infections caused by the last known mutation of the coronavirus and the potential for new cases of persistent covid to emerge after this sixth wave.
"If the trend that 15% of those infected develop persistent covid is fulfilled, the volume can be tremendous, the figures can be spectacular compared to what there was until now," he warns.
Joan Soriano, an epidemiologist at the Pneumology Service of the Hospital Universitario de La Princesa de Madrid and who has led the group of international experts who have agreed on the first definition of persistent covid released by the WHO at the end of last year, a figure between 400,000 and 800,000 the number of these patients in Spain. “The latest estimate we have made with the University of Washington is that one in six infected with coronavirus develops persistent covid. This is already a public health problem, it would be even if it were only 1% ”, he warns. "With the new variants, the problem is that we still do not have enough information about the acute disease that SARS-CoV-2 supposes and even less in relation to a chronic disease such as persistent covid," he explains.
Aránzazu Abión tries to shield with a breastplate of optimism the uneasiness of two continuous years of pain, fatigue, general malaise, tachycardia, memory loss ... But that shield is cracked when he recounts the initial misunderstanding when no doctor understood what was happening to him, his pilgrimage from one specialist to another, the reactivation of symptoms when it was reinfected in July, the forced confinement of two months in midsummer, because it was 49 days testing positive in the PCR tests, and the return of fear when in November it returned to have high fever, something abnormal about her, a sign that she had been infected again. "It is very rare that I have a fever and that is why I sensed that I had caught him again."Some suspicions that she had to confirm herself by taking an antigen test on the eve of New Year's Eve to be able to have dinner with her family. The saturation of the health centers, collapsed before the sixth wave, prevented him from having a PCR until January 4, almost two months after his first symptoms.
"I'm going to turn 40 and my life has been suspended," he says with a broken voice. He has gone from practicing triathlon and running the Barcelona half marathon in February 2020 to barely being able to climb the stairs. She is aware that, if she were treated in one of the persistent covid units that exist in several hospitals in Catalonia, multidisciplinary care could help her in her day-to-day life, but after two years wandering from doctor to doctor, and diagnosis in diagnosis, she recognizes that she has no desire to fight. "I have asked my GP to refer me to one of those units, but they are complete," he says. What he claims, yes, is psychological assistance: “I feel that my life is at risk. I have some emotional imbalances, right now I am overwhelmed, this is a horrible thing, really horrible "
Distinguish between reinfection and fluctuation of symptoms
Mely Rodríguez, who was reinfected with covid at Christmas, and her six-year-old son Sergio, both suffering from persistent covid, at their home in Gijón.
Sandra González has been waiting since the end of December to access the persistent covid unit in Granada. She was infected for the first time in October 2020 and this Christmas she tested positive again on the 28th. A bad innocent that has reactivated her respiratory problems. “When I was infected for the first time, I had a lung condition and they had to give me corticosteroids; Now that we had it under control, they had to reinforce them because that symptom has returned stronger than it was, ”he explains. Headache and ringing in the ears, previously sporadic with medication, have also returned. "Now I don't know what it is to be silent and not hear constant noises in my head," he acknowledges.
Dr. Armenteros prefers to be cautious before drawing conclusions about the consequences of reinfection in patients with persistent covid. “You have to give a margin of two or three months to be able to know what effect the sixth wave may have had, because in many cases the reinfection has been mixed with the symptoms that they already had. If someone had persistent symptoms, the covid condition could resemble what we call in them the fluctuation of symptoms, which in some moments were in a higher degree and in others it was less. In some cases, what could be a crisis of their persistent covid, was finally a reinfection, "he says.
Mely Rodríguez lives in Gijón and was infected on March 18, 2020 with coronavirus. In November of that same year, and, after eight months having to listen to his primary care doctor that the dizziness he suffered, the constant nausea, the tiredness, the breathing problems, the loss of memory or vision in one eye They were the product of "anxiety and the need to draw attention" to having had a baby in January and being pregnant with another, a professional from his private health insurance urged him to take the tests that were being carried out in Barcelona for persistent covid patients .
Mely has been infected again this Christmas. She is not the only member of her extended family - she has six children - who is persistent covid. Her six-year-old son was infected in July and since then he has been tired, has diarrhea and cannot lead a normal life. She demands more help for the investigation of this disease and also more visibility. “It seems that the covid is only a matter of being locked up for 10 days, which is like a small flu and that's it. This disease can harm you for life. If many of us who are like that told it, perhaps people would be more aware, "he warns.
The pandemic has radically turned the lives of Aránzazu, Sandra, Mely and the rest of the persistent covid patients in Spain.
In them, the fear has been installed that its consequences - that constant discomfort that emerges suddenly with different and multiple forms of pain - will not only last over time, but will worsen.
All three make a serious warning not to minimize what it means to get COVID.
So does Dr. Soriano: "The expansion of this new variant had not been seen until now, we must be cautious, because we are learning practically every day and we do not yet know what is going to happen with each of the most worrying variants, which one it will be his expression regarding persistent covid ”.