Ms Sarah O'Connell:

We do not know why some people get long Covid. We do know that in many ways it seems to fit as an autoimmune disease, which would tie into the fact that more women are affected than men. We are aware there possibly seems to be some genetic component to a predisposition to develop post-acute viral illness because we have seen multiple cases of long Covid in many families. Unfortunately, we just do not know right now why some people are getting sick and some people are not.