Worries over Long Covid impact across Derbyshire
Around 6,000 people in the county are now thought to have the condition
Last updated 4th Oct 2021
Derby and Derbyshire are home to the joint fourth highest number of Long Covid cases in the Midlands.
The condition causes fatigue, headaches among other symptoms hard to manage, which impact people's daily lives for 12 weeks or longer. According to Derbyshire County Council the age group most likely to be worst affected is the working population aged between 35 and 49, meaning that lifestyle factors could be key in managing symptoms.
There have been thousands of accounts describing what Long Covid is, but doctors are facing a reality that often symptoms vary depending on the person, and it can affect almost any part of the body.
What the symptoms mean
Doctor Rebecca Steed from Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust explained:
"The key thing with Long Covid is it is definitely a unique experience for each person, and people can get symptoms affecting any system in their body."
Research has also shown recently that around 80% of people who suffer with symptoms also have organ damage as a result of the condition. Rebecca said:
"What is being measured is there's an effect being seen within the tissues of the body, which I think all people with Long Covid expect there to be because they've got very strong and very noticeable symptoms. So they would expect there to be changes seen within their body."
Rebecca also noted that patients' severity of their initial symptoms of Covid when they contracted the virus may also not be relevant to how they are affected by Long Covid. She said:
"It doesn't, unfortunately have any relation to what the initial symptoms were. We're seeing probably quite low numbers of people coming through our clinic of people who were seriously ill with Covid and spent a long time in hospital."
Impact of the cases on health services
The county is still adjusting to the high number of cases, and there has been some concern over how health services will cope with the level of demand. Derbyshire County Council’s Public Health Director Dean Wallace has said the amount of Long Covid cases in the county will have a significant impact on the health services in the years to come during a meeting of the health and wellbeing board last Thursday. He said:
“We expect to be battling with this for the years to come and we are still in the midst of the pandemic. Some communities will be disproportionately affected, impacting their mental health and wellbeing as well as their physical health."
“Mental health and wellbeing can become a compounding factor if not caught early and even if someone were to recover physically, they may require ongoing support for their mental health needs.”
He also added that the group most at risk from contracted a more serious case of Long Covid, requiring higher assistance, were white women aged 35-49 who are more deprived.