County hospital officials say we are learning more about long Covid

AROOSTOOK COUNTY, Maine (WAGM) - Long Covid has affected many people over the last few years. Is this something that is still happening, even with the new strains?

Kris Doody, the CEO of Cary Medical Center says, “Where it’s going to land long-term, again, we learn as each passing day post Covid occurs. But there are definitely some people who have some lasting symptoms who were positive maybe even once or twice in the past couple of years. And again, looking for the best treatment for them is still being pursued. And, you know, a number of us have looked at options providing support through, whether it’s a clinic and again, we know what we know today. We hope we know a whole lot more, you know, in the coming months on how to treat some of these people with some lasting symptom.

Dr. Stephanie Gillis, the Director of Primary Care at Northern Maine Medical Center says, “I agree with Kris. I think it’s a little hard to know with some of the newer strains exactly what the amount of patients or percentage of patients who end up with long Covid symptoms is just because they’re the newer strains. And so it’ll take some time to be able to actually know those lasting effects. We definitely are still seeing long Covid in the primary care. And those are symptoms, as Kris mentioned, we are still learning and trying to best approach those. We’re fortunate here. We have one provider in particular who has a special interest and more education on it. So we’ve got some good outreach and good opportunities on treatments that are available. Some of those are still experimental in an under investigation, and as we learn more, it’s something that hopefully we’ll find some even better treatments available for long Covid symptoms.

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