IRELAND’S DEPUTY CHIEF Medical Officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, has warned that many people are suffering from prolonged side effects from Covid-19, despite being recorded as having recovered from the illness.

At a media briefing this evening, Dr Glynn said that health authorities are seeing an increase in the number of people taking a long time to fully recover their energy levels and having difficuties with exercise tolerance, even if they weren’t hospitalised for the illness.

In Ireland 92% of confirmed Covid-19 cases are marked as having recovered from the virus. However, Dr Glynn said that many of those people still are not back to feeling how they felt before they contracted the disease. 

As Covid-19 is a very new infection medics are still learning about how it affects people over time. Dr Glynn explained that it’s not unusual for people to take a long time to recover after a significant respiratory illness, but they still need to closely monitor people for prolonged side effects.

He added that it’s difficult to provide much more detail at present because many of the people are still within the first two months of their illness. 

The health official said that it serves as a message to people that don’t perceive theselves as being vulnerable to the disease because the ultimate outcome is “unknown”.

Just because, perhaps, you’re younger, or perhaps you don’t perceive yourself as someone who might suffer the most significant effects of this disease, if you are to become infected, it doesn’t neccessarily mean that you shouldn’t be doing all in your power to ensure that you don’t get this disease, that people in your family, your friends don’t get this disease, because the ultimate outcome for you, or any one of your family or friends, is unknown.

Dr Glynn advised anyone recovering from Covid-19 to contact their GP with any questions or concerns they may have.

There have been a total of 25,238 confirmed cases of the coronavirus illness in Ireland after eight new cases were announced this evening. Health officials said that a further eight patients have died from the disease, bringing the total number of deaths to 1,703.