“Many patients who suspect they have long COVID say they feel dismissed by their GPs – some are even being told it’s psychosomatic,” says Sithole, “but from my experience, a good number of them really did have COVID.”

Here's what that looks like from a patient perspective:

"Since we don't have any test results from March it's abundantly clear that you never had COVID. But then we let you take an antibody test so clearly you had COVID. Except it came back negative so obviously you never had COVID. Except the only test we'd let you take has lost FDA approval in the interim so obviously you had COVID. Except all your blood tests have come back mostly okay so obviously you never had COVID. Except your pulse ox is really troubling so obviously you had COVID. Except this chest X-Ray shows that you have no ground-glass occlusions so you obviously never had COVID. Except this EKG shows you have borderline pathological Q-waves so you obviously had COVID. So go get a pulmonary function test so we can play another round of Schroedinger's COVID, and then let's do a cardiac stress test so we can play another round of Schroedinger's COVID."

You literally ricochet between "martyr" and "liar" about seven times a minute. You can watch it in their eyes. They are, as a community and as individuals, figuring out their attitude on post-COVID symptoms and they will absolutely, positively do it in real-time with you as their exemplar.