Covid has been shown to damage the immune system in ways that last long after initial infection, leaving the body not only vulnerable to repeat infection but also less able to respond to those infections. Long Covid can trigger autoimmune processes that lead the body to attack its own cells (and not just the virus’s) and can even reactivate older, previously “dormant” diseases still lingering in the body.

Covid may be “its own comorbidity,” with each infection paving the way for the next and compounding the risk of debilitating chronic illness and organ failure.