Most people with COVID-19 don’t become severely ill and will often get better within weeks of falling sick. By staying up to date on your COVID-19 vaccine, including a booster dose, you can lower the odds of a severe illness and the risk of hospitalization. However, even a mild COVID infection can cause what doctors and researchers call “long COVID.”

Long COVID is a wide range of new, returning, or ongoing health problems people may experience more than four weeks after being first infected. Researchers estimate that 10% to 30% of patients might experience long COVID after recovering—even if they experienced mild symptoms. This leaves many COVID long-haulers with questions about symptoms and what to do. In this Fight Back episode, our special guest, Dr. Aras Mattis, a research scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, discusses the ongoing research and understanding of long COVID.