If you require mental health crisis support, please contact your local mental health services, your GP, or telephone 111 or the emergency services.

Home > COVID-19 > Support after the pandemic > Recovery after COVID-19

Recovery after COVID-19

Information looking at the long-term effects of COVID-19, including what long COVID is.

If you are recovering from COVID-19, you may still be coming to terms with the impact the virus has had on both your body and mind.

Your COVID Recovery helps you to understand what has happened and what you might expect as part of your recovery.

Long COVID

What is long COVID?

Most infections with COVID-19 resolve within the first 4 weeks. “Long COVID” is the term that is commonly used to describe signs and symptoms that continue or develop after an acute infection of COVID-19.

According to the NHS common symptoms of long COVID include:

  • extreme tiredness (fatigue)
  • shortness of breath
  • chest pain or tightness
  • problems with memory and concentration (“brain fog”)
  • difficulty sleeping (insomnia)
  • heart palpitations
  • dizziness
  • pins and needles
  • joint pain
  • depression and anxiety
  • tinnitus, earaches
  • feeling sick, diarrhoea, stomach aches, loss of appetite
  • a high temperature, cough, headaches, sore throat, changes to sense of smell or taste
  • rashes

Depending on how long you have ongoing symptoms for, it can be called one of 2 things:

  • Ongoing symptomatic COVID
    This is where your symptoms continue for more than 4 weeks. If your symptoms last for longer than 12 weeks, it will then be called;
  • Post-COVID Syndrome
    This is where your ongoing symptoms continue for longer than 12 weeks and cannot be explained by any other condition.

You can find out more about long COVID and recovery on the NHS website.

Go to NHS website for long COVID information.

Post-pandemic e-learning

If you’re interested in completing a free online course and finding out more about post-pandemic recovery, head to our e-learning site where you can explore the topic in more detail in our “Pandemic Recovery” course. Follow the link below and head to the “Pandemic” section.

The course has been created to give you information about current guidance relating to the pandemic and links to the most up to date advice, as well as exploring how you might be feeling, what you can do to support your mental health at this time and how to  support other people you know, including children and young people, as well as accessible information.

Go to Pandemic Recovery e-learning