Collins said NIH is working to understand how the virus is capable of causing a disease that some people do not recover from the way their bodies should. “What is it? Did you damage the body by some kind of blood clotting problem from an immune system problem that went wrong? We really don’t know,” said Collins.
NIH will follow COVID’s long-haulers for months, and possibly even years, to try to understand COVID’s long-haulers, Collins said. Long COVID is even more difficult to understand because the experiences of long-haulers do not follow a common pattern. While some get sick at first, others don’t show symptoms until weeks later, he explained.
NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk explained: “The hope is that identifying the cause will help treat the symptoms.” However, she noted that if the problems are related to the brain, the outlook is not promising. Avindra Nath, MD, principal investigator at NIH, told her that while the brain can repair some damage, it cannot repair all. And for the signs that you could be a long-distance traveler, Dr. Fauci Just Said This is the telltale sign that you have been COVID for a long time.