Long COVID: What we are yet to know!

Since January 2020, everyone of us has become a self-styled virologist and the upside of this trend is reflected in our achievements in the fight against this pandemic. We could sequence multitude of viral genomes, flood the repositories with pathbreaking onslaught of research articles and roll out multiple types of vaccines in record speed. Kudos to all our achievements. Nevertheless, it is no time to be complacent as new variants evolve rapidly, posing significant threat to the efficacy of vaccines by projecting possibilities of vaccine escape and obvious breakthrough infections. On top of this, the clinical manifestation of long COVID symptoms (symptoms that persist well after 4 weeks of the active infection), the diversity of symptoms among people and the prevailing 'survivor bias ' in determining the prevalence of long COVID among certain age groups add to our woes. Despite of our achievements in characterizing the virus and rolling out potent measures to prevent infection, we still don't have a clear understanding of the sequelae of a COVID-19 infection. Researchers across the world have now put on their quest to understand the biology of long COVID. A comprehensive article in Nature discusses the current state of understanding of long COVID and put forth four fundamental questions that we still need a comprehensive answer. Until, we have a clear understanding of the virus and in turn what the virus does to our body, there cannot be any let up in our fight against this virus.

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