[walterbell]

From the article:

> But he warned that until we figure out what is causing long Covid "it is difficult to figure out treatments."

If scientists don't know what is causing "Long Covid", then they don't know what is causing "Covid". Yet, many treatments have been developed for Covid.

If we accept our ability to treat without full knowledge of origin, then "Long Covid" can be treated, as has been done for Covid.

If "Long Covid" deserves a different status due to unknown origin, then the same standard can be applied to the unknown origin of Covid.

[wins32767]

Long Covid could be caused not by an active virus, but in long lasting changes to the body caused by a prior infection. One could imagine (entirely hypothetically) that a subset of COVID infections destroys all of the cells in the nose used generate further cells that detect smells. This would result in a permanent loss of smell, but fixing it require something different than just removing the virus from the body.

[spion]

Scientists do have some idea: https://twitter.com/farid__jalali/status/1293305162509910016

disclamer: IANA scientist or doctor, but it looks like long covid might be very similar to allergy (and similarly treated)