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REACT Long COVID

Defining Long COVID

Over the past 3 years, we have been inviting people to share what ongoing symptoms after COVID-19 feel like in their own words as part of our defining Long COVID Challenge on VOICE-Global. [This activity has now closed but we continue to use the responses to shape our work].

We received over 100 responses which capture the depth and breadth of symptoms experienced. One of our aims of this challenge was to use these responses to raise awareness of the symptoms of Long COVID, and their impact, in a way that is accessible, engaging, and impactful. As such, we have been working closely with our public advisor and illustrator Monique Jackson to develop illustrations which visually capture the range and impact of Long COVID symptoms.

In 2022 Monique produced a poster entitled ‘What does long covid feels like?’ (see below) visualising the way contributors described their ‘fatigue’, ‘breathlessness’, ‘pain’, ‘tingling/buzzing’ and ‘brain fog’ symptoms, among others.

More recently Monique has developed a poster on the impacts of Long Covid to answer the question ‘What is life like with Long Covid?’. The poster is linked to a series of illustrated stories shared on our social media pages. These stories were inspired by the defining Long Covid responses as well as the REACT-LC study interviews and cover the different areas of people’s life that might be impacted by their symptoms. They can be viewed here.

Download the What is life like with long covid poster