A lot of us are asking how long it takes to completely recover from the coronavirus. Who is vulnerable for fast recovery and how dangerous is it if you have some health problems? Is the path back to full health complicated or not?

We all know that recovery time will rely on how sick you first became. Age and health conditions are the main factors why a patient is more severely ill with the coronavirus. The more ill they are, the more treatment and longer recovery they will take. So how long does it take if you have mild and extreme symptoms? Will the coronavirus affect your health for a long period of time and will you get infected with the virus again?

The majority of people who get COVID-19 usually suffer mild symptoms like cough, fever, body aches, fatigue, sore throat and headaches. A study of Chinese data by the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that it takes an average of two weeks to recover and be treated with rest, plenty of fluids, and relief from pain such as paracetamol. To those who have more serious symptoms, breathing is hard and lungs become inflamed because the immune system is trying to fight back as our body is enduring collateral damage. It takes two to eight weeks to recover and the patient needs to be in the hospital for oxygen therapy.

Regarding how long it will affect our health, doctors say they don’t know for certain as there is no long-term data but on the other hand, they can look at other factors. In patients whose immune systems go into overdrive, the acute respiratory distress syndrome (otherwise known as Ards) develops, causing lung damage. According to Warwick general practitioner (GP) and lecturer Dr. James Gill, mental health support is needed to improve recovery. Also, they figure out that there is a possibility that some mild cases can leave patients with long-term health issues such as fatigue.

After recovering from COVID-19, experts believe that once you have the virus, it doesn’t mean you can’t have the virus again. Most of the recovered patients develop an antibody and no one knows how long it will last. Reports of patients who have been infected for the second time may be due to incorrect tests recording that they have recovered from the virus. Proper hygiene and social distancing are two of the best ways for an individual to be not reinfected with the virus.

As of now, let’s keep ourselves healthy and stay positive as there are already 1,021,000 recoveries worldwide from the coronavirus as of May 1, 2020. Let’s stay at home and always be vigilant about what’s happening around us. Self-discipline is really important.