Fatigue and Long-COVID

Fatigue is the most common symptom that affects those with acute and Long COVID. Over the past few years, governments around the world have spent millions of dollars on biomedical research that has quickly picked up a trail of clues that fatigue and Long-COVID are biological disorders with profound psycho-social consequences. The COVID-19 pandemic and symptoms such as fatigue have reignited interest in post-viral fatigue syndromes, illnesses that have historically challenged clinicians and medical orthodoxy. In this chapter, we review the theoretical controversies that surrounded the best known post-viral fatigue syndrome, that being myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Its history in terms of research and practice has lessons for how scientists are trying to understand fatigue and Long COVID. This chapter concludes by discussing the implications of past work with post-viral fatigue syndromes, and how a better understanding of these syndromes can help health care practitioners and researchers interested in scientific inquiry regarding Long COVID.