COVID Celebrates Long Distance Carriers Recognition After State Adds Stories to Website

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Thousands of Utahns experiencing symptoms a few months after being diagnosed with COVID-19 feel that they are finally receiving recognition.

These “long haulers” said that a recent article posted on the state’s coronavirus website helps them feel heard and also helps connect others to their resources.

“We are real people doing this, with families and jobs that some of us have failed to return to,” said Lisa O’Brien, creator of the Utah Facebook group COVID-19 Long Haulers.

It’s been almost a year since O’Brien was diagnosed with COVID-19. But, like a handful of others, her symptoms simply did not go away.

“Some of us have experienced crazy heart rhythms, crazy blood pressure. We’ve lost about half of our hair, probably because of the stress my body went through,” O’Brien said.

She founded the Utah COVID-19 Long Haulers Facebook group, which now has more than 2,000 members, as a platform for people to discuss their symptoms and share resources.

“Long-haul carriers have been left out of mass messages,” she said. “Almost all this time we have the number of cases, the number of recovery, the number of deaths and now we count the vaccinations. But you know, we didn’t count those who didn’t recover.”

As the state published about the long haulers and shared some of the stories on their website, O’Brien felt that they were finally receiving recognition.

“It’s great to be recognized,” she said. “It’s great for people to know that having these symptoms in the long run is a real risk.”

She hopes that such articles will give those in similar situations hope and a place to turn to.

“We don’t have all the answers, of course, yes, we still learn a lot, but we know pieces,” she said.

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Ashley Moser