• It’s essential not to expect too much from yourself as you recover.
• Enable your body to return to everyday life before you try to improve your fitness. Ensure you get good sleep and rest during the day before getting back into your pre-COVID routine. If your fatigue is stable, you can gradually recover your fitness.
• Once you have stabilised your energy levels and your fatigue has improved, you can set yourself achievable targets to see progress each week.

COVID-19 is seen as an illness that primarily affects the lungs; however, it can also affect many, if not all, body systems, including heart, kidney, skin, and brain function. It can cause organ damage and many health complications that linger after the illness. In some cases, prolonged health effects may include long-term breathing problems, heart complications, chronic kidney impairment, stroke, and Guillain-Barre syndrome – which causes temporary paralysis.

Some adults and children experience multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS) after having COVID-19. In this condition, some organs and tissues become severely inflamed.

These are autoimmune issues that start when your body’s immune system attacks healthy cells by mistake, causing inflammation (swelling) or tissue damage in the heart, kidneys, and brain. Organ damage may lead to health complications that linger after COVID-19 illness.

How long it takes to recover from coronavirus is different for everyone. You might find you make a full recovery within 12 weeks, but you might find that your symptoms last a lot longer. Even if you had a very mild COVID-19 infection, you might still suffer from ongoing symptoms. Some people also find that their symptoms feel better on some days and worse on others.

Call 999 if:

• you’re getting more breathless
• you’re coughing up blood
• you have severe chest pain.

You must seek medical help if you have:

• chest pain or tightness
• heart palpitations
• leg or arm swelling
• depression causing thoughts of self-harm or neglect.