They had a mild Covid. Then their severe symptoms started.

Dr Allison P. Navis, a neuro-infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Health System in New York who was not involved in the study, said about 75% of his 200 post-Covid patients suffered from such problems as “depression, anxiety, irritability or certain mood symptoms.”

The study participants were predominantly white and 70% were female. Dr Navis and others said the lack of diversity most likely reflects the demographics of people able to seek treatment relatively early in the pandemic rather than the full spectrum of those affected by post-Covid neurological symptoms.

“Especially in New York, the majority of patients who have fallen ill with Covid are people of color and Medicaid patients, and these are absolutely not the patients that we see at the post-Covid center,” said the Dr Navis. “The majority of the patients are white, they often have private insurance, and I think we need to understand a little more about what’s going on there with these disparities – if it’s just a lack of access. or if the symptoms are ruled out in people of color or if it is something else.

In the Northwestern study, Dr Koralnik said that since coronavirus tests were difficult to come by at the start of the pandemic, only half of the participants tested positive for the coronavirus, but all had the first physical symptoms of Covid-19. The study found very little difference between those who tested positive and those who did not. Dr Koralnik said those who tested negative tended to contact the clinic about a month later in the illness than those who tested positive, perhaps because some had spent weeks being evaluated or trying to get their problems treated by other doctors.

Ms Khan was among the attendees who tested negative for the virus, but said she then tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus, proof that she had been infected.

Another study participant, Eddie Palacios, 50, a commercial real estate broker who lives in Naperville, a Chicago suburb, tested positive for coronavirus in the fall, only experiencing a headache and loss. of taste and smell. But “a month later, things have changed,” he said.