When Katie Lazell-Fairman returned to work after recovering from a Covid-19 infection, she quickly discovered that the virus had taken a much heavier toll on her body than she initially realised.
“I woke up suddenly feeling incredibly exhausted, dizzy. My heart rate was 135 beats per minute standing, 140-150 walking,” says the 35-year-old, a data scientist from New York. “I couldn’t think straight and struggled to code on my laptop.”
Lazell-Fairman, who caught Covid during the city’s first wave in 2020, says she had to quit a contract job and stop working on a start-up she founded to develop software for art collectors. Her doctor diagnosed her with a blood circulation disorder and other Covid-related conditions, which left her bedridden on some days and housebound on others.