Introduction
The year 2019 turned out to be a turning point for all the inhabitants of the planet, taking many lives and changing many destinies. Despite the fact that a part of the population infected with coronavirus was cured, traces of the disease remained, which has affected their health significantly. Both the consequences of the post-COVID living and how people were able to cope with them varied considerably. The new symptoms took up the name long COVID, which emphasizes their long-lasting nature (Raveendran et al., 2021). Long COVID affects a large portion of past COVID patients, and the range of potential symptoms is immense. Currently, medical professionals still struggle to fully document or understand how the coronavirus, and its variants, affect health in the long term. However, some conditions, such as an absence of smell, shortness of breath and weakness can be identified by most doctors. Any changes in health after the coronavirus will be considered a long-term COVID. This time depends on the severity of the person’s illness (Raveendran et al., 2021). The coronavirus pandemic has destabilized the world, and affected thousands of families worldwide. Understanding the problem in its long-term form, then, is vital in staying prepared, and protecting one’s loved ones. The main concern of this work comes in wanting to examine and discuss long COVID in the healthcare and research context, including the way it affects patients, and the influence of a person’s age and health. It is hypothesized that older individuals, and people with disabilities are affected more severely by long COVID, and experience lesser quality of life as a result.
COVID and the Human Body
The virus that has affected all of humanity has its name as SARS-CoV-2. When the virus interacts with the host cell, the transporter will be the angiotensin converting enzyme 2. This receptor is widely distributed in many organs of individuals. These organs can be the kidneys, small intestine, ovaries, as well as the heart. This receptor supports the vital activity of the intestinal microbiome. When a virus enters a cell, it suppresses the expression of genes. There is also a wide variety of effects a virus can have on the human genome. It can irreparably alter a cell’s RNA or DNA, causing the genes to degrade (McCance et al., 2019). This process may cause a virus to further spread in the body, or become transmittable through reproductive means. An interesting process that has been caused by COVID, among other viruses, is protein synthesis inhibition (Finkel et al., 2021). According to recent research, this virus can actively block the innate immune response of its target, and impede the function of protein production. Being at the same time unable to create a new and effective protection for itself during the infection, the body suffers more severely from the coronavirus, never being able to fully heal. During Long COVID, the virus spreads in many organ tissues and it uses phospholipids for its shell (Souilmi et al., 2020). In addition, the virus, after undergoing a coronavirus infection, provokes an autoimmune reaction. The virus also damages the receptors that regulate blood pressure.
During long COVID, a person may have various headaches. Also, after the coronavirus, a person begins to feel mentally tired and to be depressed to some extent. For those individuals that live with other severe conditions, experiencing both COVID and long COVID becomes more dangerous. Older people’s immune system is more susceptible to attacks, often making them suffer more severe symptoms. Disabled individuals, similarly, often experience issues concerning their immune response, or feel the physical side effects of the coronavirus more.
Conclusion
In conclusion, long COVID presents a new set of challenges and research opportunities for society. As a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a serious problem, one that affects a large percentage of the population. Many of the effects and symptoms of long COVID are yet to be fully understood, making the process of helping those affected harder. However, with a large population size, considerable time and finances, researchers and doctors alike will be capable of spending more time on this subject. In order to help the vulnerable populations, such as older people and the disabled, more information on long COVID and ways to alleviate it is necessary.
References
Finkel, Y., Gluck, A., Nachshon, A., Winkler, R., Fisher, T., Rozman, B., Mizrahi, O., Lubelsky, Y., Zuckerman, B., Slobodin, B., Yahalom-Ronen, Y., Tamir, H., Ulitsky, I., Israely, T., Paran, N., Schwartz, M., & Stern-Ginossar, N. (2021). SARS-Cov-2 uses a multipronged strategy to impede host protein synthesis. Nature, 594(7862), 240-245. Web.
McCance, K. L., Huether, S. E., & Rote, N. S. (2019). Pathophysiology: The biologic basis for disease in adults and children. Mosby.
Raveendran, A., Jayadevan, R., & Sashidharan, S. (2021). Long COVID: An overview. Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews, 15(3), 869-875. Web.
Souilmi, Y., Lauterbur, M. E., Tobler, R., Huber, C. D., Johar, A. S., & Enard, D. (2020). An ancient viral epidemic involving host coronavirus interacting genes more than 20,000 years ago in East Asia. Web.