What’s next after COVID-19 recovery?

It is my great interest to introduce the special series entitled “Clinical and Non-clinical Consequences After COVID-19 Recovery” in the Journal of Public Health and Emergency. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic rapidly became a difficult health challenge worldwide from different points of views. The first intervention concerns the preventive approach with the extensive vaccination; the second is the early cure of patients with infection and major risk of progression but without evidence of respiratory involvement using neutralizing monoclonal antibody or novel direct antivirals; the third is the treatment of hospitalized patients with moderate or severe disease that required both antiviral and supportive therapies; finally, the follow-up of discharged or healed patients seems to be relevant for the clinical and non-clinical consequences after acute COVID-19 recovery. The “long COVID” or “post-COVID” syndrome includes a large number with different characteristics of sign and symptoms unresolved after viral clearance and persistent after 12 or more weeks. Clinical consequences are widely described and involve multiple aspects: metabolic, physical, neurological, psychiatric, respiratory, cardiovascular and others. However, a direct effect of the SARS-CoV-2 infection is still debated, and in most cases, we should distinguish between direct viral action and consequences of hospitalization with major emphasis on the mechanical ventilation, need of intensive-care-unit support, prolonged use of corticosteroids.

Among non-clinical consequences of COVID-19 we include all socio-economic and working aspects related to the persistence of symptoms with some limitations in everyday life and employment. These aspects should be better deepened and described with the purpose of novel perspectives of investigation.

We aim to encourage all Authors to contribute to this special series in reason of a greater interest about these topics thanking them for their contribution.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank all authors for their participation in this special series. A special thanks to the Editorial Office of the Journal of Public Health and Emergency for this important and considerable invitation to write this special series.

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Journal of Public Health and Emergency for the series “Clinical and Non-clinical Consequences after COVID-19 Recovery”. The article did not undergo external peer review.

Conflicts of Interest: The author has completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://jphe.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/jphe-22-67/coif). The series “Clinical and Non-clinical Consequences after COVID-19 Recovery” was commissioned by the editorial office without any funding or sponsorship. LB serves as an unpaid Guest Editor of the series and serves as an unpaid editorial board member of Journal of Public Health and Emergency from September 2020 to September 2022. The author has no other conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The author is accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Lucio Boglione