When the pandemic first began, we really only talked about COVID as a disease that you

got, survived and recovered from, or tragically resulted in death.

But as time went on, it became apparent that in some cases, even mild cases, COVID

survivors had long-lasting symptoms, sometimes really weird symptoms for weeks or months.

These patients were often dismissed by doctors or even their own family members.

Hannah Davis is one of these survivors. We talked with her back in June as a part of an episode

featuring reporting by Atlantic Science reporter Ed Young. And today, we're re-airing that episode,

because since we've talked, after months of patients advocating for themselves,

it's become even more apparent that this isn't some rare occurrence. The CDC and World Health

Organization finally acknowledged that this was happening, and scientists around the world

are publishing more and more about it. So today, we revisit the COVID long haulers.

We've got a new episode for you tomorrow.

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hannah remembers pretty clearly. It was a Wednesday. The first time she realized something

wasn't right. So I remember feeling extremely scatterbrained. I was just kind of wandering

around my apartment. I was getting distracted very easily.

Hannah Davis is 32. She lives in Brooklyn. Later that day, she got a text from a friend about

doing a video chat. Nothing too complicated. But Hannah realized she couldn't totally process

the language in the text message. But I didn't think too much of it. I was just like, oh, that's

weird. I must be tired or something. And then about an hour later, I had an elevated fever of just

99.2. And that was my first kind of realization that something might be wrong.

That was March 25th.

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