Dr. John Lambert:

Legislation was passed in the UK, I do not remember when, supporting long Covid being a condition for which patients would be entitled to disability. I do not know if that has happened in Ireland. I hear from many of my patients that their benefits are going to be taken away shortly and they are told to return to work or find ways to cope on their own. The challenge is that it is one of those vague conditions like ME. Some people have pain syndrome, some pass out, some have exhaustion, some people have brain fog and are unable to concentrate and some have tinnitus. There are so many different symptoms related to the brain and there is no magic blood test. The scans that I spoke about to show the abnormalities, the CT brain and MRI scans of the brain, are normal. It is PET scans that show up the abnormalities and those are not available in Ireland. I think it has to be clinical diagnosis. We have to believe the patients because my patients want to go back to work. They are not malingering.