Your questions, answered "I contracted the coronavirus in early November 2020. I was very ill but luckily did not have to be hospitalized. Unfortunately, however, I developed a lingering cough that I can't get rid of. I've been to my primary physician who prescribed a cough syrup that is a temporary fix. I have to sleep sitting up or else I have 'coughing fits.' Is this a symptom of a 'long hauler'? Am I stuck with this cough forever or are there doctors treating the aftereffects of coronavirus?" — Irene in Maryland We're sorry to hear about your persistent cough. Since we're journalists, not doctors, we're not in a position to diagnose whether your particular cough is a lingering symptom of covid, also known as long covid. That said: People who experience long covid report a variety symptoms, and, yes, cough can be one of them. The most common post-covid conditions that last for at least four weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also include fatigue, difficulty thinking, headache, fever and muscle pain. A severe covid-19 case can cause scarring or other lung damage, which can result in breathing problems even after the virus has been cleared from the body. As for ways to reduce the effects of long covid, anecdotally, a few people have said their persistent covid symptoms were relieved after vaccination. Scientists are still collecting data on this. There are doctors, too, who are specifically helping people with long covid recover. This week, Scientific American profiled the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's COVID Recovery Clinic, which opened in February. It is one of a few dozen long covid specialty clinics in the United States. The Chapel Hill clinic is, right now, designed to treat patients over 18 who've had covid and persistent symptoms for at least four weeks. "We've focused our efforts on people who have a confirmed history of covid so we can better use our resources within the clinic. And we've changed the evaluation measures to better target the people we see," the clinic's co-director John Baratta told Scientific American. Studies will continue to follow long covid patients as the worst of the pandemic wanes in the United States. Earlier this year, the National Institutes of Health launched a program to follow these patients as part of a $1.15 billion congressionally funded initiative. That will help address the many questions surrounding this syndrome, but those results will take time to collect. Some medical experts argue that the country is, in the meantime, ill-prepared to help long covid patients — as two researchers said in the New England Journal of Medicine Wednesday, this "is our next public health disaster in the making." | 
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