Health experts call on employers not to rush staff with long covid back to work
It's one week since hundreds of shops, salons and pub beer gardens reopened for business
Last updated 19th Apr 2021
Doctors and health officials in and around Staffordshire and Cheshire are calling on employers not to rush people suffering from long-covid back into the workplace.
They're warning employers that if they force their staff to return they are "taking a chance on their lives".
It's as hundreds of shops, salons and outdoor hospitality venues reopened their doors following several months of closure due to coronavirus restrictions.
Now, many people are being expected to return to shop floors, stock rooms and waiting on tables in busy environments, as hundreds of customers head out to enjoy the new freedoms.
Helen Avouris lives near Alderley Edge and caught covid-19 last March. She lost her ability to talk for four months and still struggles with exhaustion. She said:
"I had absolutely no concept of it dragging on like this. In fact, recently I've even had as much as six weeks where I've felt about 80% back to normal but then it comes back - just as you get kind of cocky about it and think, alright, I'm over this, it comes back to clobber you again.
"Some employers are being really difficult thinking that long covid isn't real and that it's all in the mind. And obviously people who are on jobs where they don't qualify for sick pay, I suppose people in the gig economy - if they don't go to work, they don't have any income!"
Helen's urging employers to be as flexible as possible and patient with their employees.
"It's a roller coaster and the relapsing and remitting nature of it needs to be taken into account. So somebody with long covid might appear to be reasonably well for a couple of months. And then they can be they can be hit again with the fatigue and the breathlessness and the palpitations and the myriad of other weird and scary symptoms."
What are the symptoms of long covid?
For many it can seem like a cycle of improving for a short time and then suddenly getting worse again. These long-term effects aren’t only affecting those who needed to go to hospital, or even who felt seriously unwell when they first caught the virus.
Lasting symptoms of coronavirus can include:
- fatigue
- breathlessness
- anxiety and depression
- palpitations
- chest pains
- joint or muscle pain
- not being able to think straight or focus (‘brain fog’)