Peter Berlit, general secretary of the German Neurological Society, says doctors need to differentiate more clearly between the syndromes. There are some patients who have to be on ventilators in intensive care for long periods. That puts a lot of stress on the body, says Berlit, and patients often need months of rehab to recover. “But they are not really suffering from post-COVID. They are suffering from Post-Intensive-Care Syndrome (PICS),” he explains, a long-recognized syndrome. He estimates that between 15 and 20% of cases could be explained by PICS — “which most people recover from through targeted neurological rehabilitation,” he says. Doctors believe that even long COVID may not necessarily be a COVID-specific problem. Similar symptoms appear in patients after other severe infections, such as flu. In a Danish study, scientists compared the severity of COVID patients’ symptoms with those of patients who’d suffered from other respiratory diseases, and saw that the majority of complaints experienced by COVID patients were also found in the other group. Except for two: changes to the sense of smell and taste, and a reduced ability to plan ahead. “The good news is that this also gets better over time,” says Berlit. Then there is post-COVID. According to some international studies, roughly 30 to 40% of COVID patients suffer from long-term symptoms, although many doctors dispute this. Data from five health insurance providers, which provide around half of health insurance policies in Germany, recently showed that physical and mental illness both increased significantly after a COVID infection. “These are very interesting results, but they don’t necessarily imply causality,” says Berlit. It’s difficult to determine whether a headache three months after a COVID infection is related.