ICYMI: 'Complete change in our quality of life': Long COVID a burden for many Canadians
For two years, the mother of four has been living with the post-COVID-19 condition known as long COVID, which has limited her abilities to engage in physical activity, process information and work long hours.
“It’s just been a complete change in our quality of life,” says Cover, who lives in St. Albert, Alta. “For a lot of people … they get sick and then they recover, so they don’t really care,” she says. “I feel helpless because I feel like the more we get infected, the worse it’s going to get for us and I don’t know what I can do to protect my family.”
Conservative estimates currently peg the number of Canadians with long COVID at 300,000, Cheung says. That’s based on the World Health Organization’s estimate that at least 10 per cent of those infected with COVID-19 will experience the condition and the fact that more than three million Canadians have contracted the virus.
But the health-care system is “still struggling” with patients who haven’t gotten out of hospital yet due to the long-term effects of the virus, which affects the overall number of urgent surgeries and procedures that can be done, Cheung says.