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Long COVID affects many Minnesotans years after the pandemic

It’s been six years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but many Minnesotans are still suffering its aftermath. Coming up at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, MPR News host Angela Davis talks about the extreme fatigue, brain fog and other symptoms of long COVID.
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Angela Davis and Maja Beckstrom
September 30, 2026 9:00 AM

Long COVID affects many Minnesotans years after the pandemic​

Coming up at 9 a.m. on Wednesday


...

Coming up at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, MPR News host Angela Davis talks with a doctor and a public health leader about long COVID and other other post-infection chronic conditions that doctors are only beginning to understand.

And we want to hear from you, too.

Have you been diagnosed with long COVID or do you have chronic symptoms that you think are related to getting COVID-19? How has the condition affected your life?

Call us during the 9 a.m. hour at 651-227-6000 or 800-242-2828. 

Guests: 

 
@Chandelier TY for sharing this link. Just listened this morning. A few of my thoughts: one thing that struck me was how clearly you can hear the urgency and seriousness in the reporters voices throughout the segment. That urgency to me seemed to be echoed by the physician and the program manager who underscored that these conditions are not new even though many are only now beginning to recognize their impact. Another aspect that stood out to me was how firmly the PM pushed back on the outdated assumption around exercise and GET for ME (after the call-in), emphasizing that exertion can worsen symptoms and for some lead to lasting declines in function. Her conviction on that point was hard to miss I thought

The reporters commented several times on the volume of calls coming into the program, which signals there is significant public interest in this topic
 
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Chandelier said:
Headline: "The life-threatening dangers of long flu — from diabetes risk to brain inflammation"

"These illnesses are what experts call “long flu,” impacting the respiratory system, according to researchers at WashU Medicine."
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I see any benefit in the term "long flu."

If the person meets ME/CFS diagnosis then call it ME/CFS. And maybe add that it was triggered by flu.

If the person doesn't meet ME/CFS diagnosis then there are a bunch of other umbrella terms: post-viral syndrome, post-viral fatigue syndrome, post-acute infection syndromes, etc.

So many folks with ME/CFS got it after a flu-like illness (although many of us never got a test to show what virus it was). I really don't get why we should use long flu, but maybe someone else can explain?
 
ahimsa said:
I'm not sure I see any benefit in the term "long flu."
Click to expand...

Presumably this term has developed off the back of ‘Long Covid’ so I guess short term it might carry some recognition value, but I do agree longer term there are already better terms.

Personally I developed ME/CFS with a glandular fever/mono associated onset (Long EBV?) from which I believed I had recovered from after some 4 or 5 years, but later relapsed in association with seasonal flue (Long Flue?), however I don’t think as time goes on that either term, Long EBV or Long Flue, add anything meaningful to my ME/CFS diagnosis.

Indeed as we move on from the main pandemic phase of Covid, the term Long Covid will become less meaningful given so many people will have been exposed to Covid 19, but were not tested at the time, we generally will not know if their presumed post viral symptoms are due to a Covid infection or to another virus.
 
From Bluesky:



Jon Douglas @atranscendedman.bsky.social

CDC sent me the 2025 NHIS data this week, and one number stuck with me.

8.7 million American adults were living with Long COVID in 2025.

That's 1 in 30 of us.

It's easy to stop seeing a crisis once it stops being new.

It's still happening.

2025 NHIS Questionnaires, Datasets, and Documentation

Links to the 2025 NHIS materials and data.
www.cdc.gov www.cdc.gov
https://bsky.app/profile/atranscendedman.bsky.social#
bafkreih3fsvzlqwnpwqxckg7irn7taixxjomawwpj5fez26knngfnpe4ra


​
 
ahimsa said:
I'm not sure I see any benefit in the term "long flu."

If the person meets ME/CFS diagnosis then call it ME/CFS. And maybe add that it was triggered by flu.

If the person doesn't meet ME/CFS diagnosis then there are a bunch of other umbrella terms: post-viral syndrome, post-viral fatigue syndrome, post-acute infection syndromes, etc.
Click to expand...
It's odd how I found it notable that in the first 1-2 years of LC I saw regular (not that many, but still) mentions of physicians saying something like "we've always known about post-viral illness" when talking about LC, and I haven't seen a single one in the last 4 years.

You'd almost think there were memos to that effect, to keep is shush. And, you know what, it doesn't even sound like a conspiracy given everything we know about how this was majorly mishandled. It's very obvious that the whole "social contagion" nonsense has been given massively inflated influence, and that there is still zero motivation to adapt to the obvious fact that it was always a cheap lie.
 
"Four years in, it isn't going down."​

And won't until we get a vaccine that blocks transmission, not just reduces transmission and the consequences of getting infected, as worthy as those achievements are.


Maybe. But given the indisputable track record and character of this administration, including on health issues, and RFK Jr himself, I remain deeply skeptical and worried about both efficacy and especially safety.
 
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