LCK In The News

Singing and recording an anthem written for the Coronation of King Charles III is enabling people living with Long COVID to combat isolation and feel part of the celebrations, the director of a ‘wellbeing choir’ has said.
Merel van der Knoop, musical director of the Long Covid Choir, said more than half the 200 members of her online choir have been left housebound because of the condition.
Van der Knoop said that the initiative gave members of her choir a way to join in with the festivities and feel connected to the rest of the UK.

Eight-year-old Jake O’Connell has been left “exhausted and unable to do the things that he once loved” after his diagnosis of long COVID.
His father Paul O’Connell said: “He's gone from the first instance with mild symptoms – he recovered but wasn't 100% – to the second time he got it, his symptoms increased dramatically.”

Renowned art curator Ekow Eshun has been appointed to oversee the co-creation of a modern tapestry for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that will capture the experiences and emotions of people across the UK during the pandemic. Ekow will curate the tapestry, which will feature panels produced by different artists over the coming months. The Inquiry is working with a range of organisations and individuals across the UK to identify stories to inspire each panel.

Dr Faghy is working with a team of partners to trial whether antiviral medication over a short period of time reduces the size of viral reservoirs and the severity of their symptoms.
Another group Dr Faghy is working with are children. He says “We don’t know the long-term effects on children and young people at the moment. The biggest thing for them is getting recognition. There were some public health messages during the pandemic that suggested that children can’t get Covid. We know that’s not the case, they’re just as likely to get a Covid infection as adults, in some cases more likely because they’re frequently around people.”

Following Covid in January, by February 2022 Jake had developed bad stomach pains, which his mother, as a doctor, could not understand. Not long afterwards, he began to develop a range of other debilitating and seemingly random symptoms, including dizziness, chest pains, night sweats, a face rash, peeling fingers, fatigue and diarrhoea.
Jake was seen by a private consultant in April 2022. "It was a relief to finally have it confirmed that Jay’s condition was caused by his original COVID-19 infection, after everything else had been ruled out,” says Neera. “With it, we would hopefully be taken more seriously, and not just dismissed as we had been by some professionals"