Hi and welcome to COVID Quickly, a scientific American podcast series.

This is your fast track update on the COVID pandemic.

We bring you up to speed on the science behind the most urgent questions about the virus

and the disease.

We demystify the research and help you understand what it really means.

I'm Tanya Lewis.

I'm Josh Fishman.

From where scientific American senior health editors, today we'll talk about clinics

for long-haul COVID patients, and using barber shops to get vaccines to communities that

need them most.

Early in the pandemic, there were some reports of people with odd symptoms such as fatigue

and memory issues that continued long after their acute infection.

Now these long haulers are getting some specialized help.

More and more data is coming out about long COVID.

That's serious physical and mental effects that can last half a year after people first

get infected.

The latest study came out last week in the journal Nature Medicine.

Researchers looked at health records for a few hundred people in Bergen, Norway.

That was almost everyone in the city diagnosed with COVID during several months in 2020.

Overall, 61% of the group had symptoms six months after they were first infected.

Their most common problem was fatigue, followed by difficulty concentrating, disturbed smell

or taste, memory trouble and a hard time breathing.

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