Conclusions and Relevance In this study of a cohort of German patients recently recovered from COVID-19 infection, CMR revealed cardiac involvement in 78 patients (78%) and ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60 patients (60%), independent of preexisting conditions, severity and overall course of the acute illness, and time from the original diagnosis. These findings indicate the need for ongoing investigation of the long-term cardiovascular consequences of COVID-19.
While this measurement isn’t CFS directly the heart damage might be the causal mechanism for it and is thus worrisome news.
Found some evidence about fatigue in the linked paper
Compared with pre–COVID-19 status, 36 patients (36%) reported ongoing shortness of breath and general exhaustion, of whom 25 noted symptoms during less-than-ordinary daily activities, such as a household chore.
That said, recently recovered patients are not a particularly helpful group to look at (the average period since diagnosis was ~70 days, which might mean they’d generally been recovered for less than a month)
The fever should settle in less than a week, although the cough may linger. A World Health Organization (WHO) analysis of Chinese data says it takes two weeks on average to recover.
Given that of those 25 only 6 got hospitalized (and thus might have needed more recovery time) I think the recovery time is likely higher then a month and nearer to two months.
The initial paper also has some plots that show measurements of myocardial inflammation against the time since infection and those plots don’t suggest that the time has a huge influence. The native T1 plot even looks like the amount of myocardial inflammation rises as time passes.
Outcomes of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Patients Recently Recovered From Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19):
While this measurement isn’t CFS directly the heart damage might be the causal mechanism for it and is thus worrisome news.
Found some evidence about fatigue in the linked paper
That said, recently recovered patients are not a particularly helpful group to look at (the average period since diagnosis was ~70 days, which might mean they’d generally been recovered for less than a month)
Coronavirus: How long does it take to recover?
Given that of those 25 only 6 got hospitalized (and thus might have needed more recovery time) I think the recovery time is likely higher then a month and nearer to two months.
The initial paper also has some plots that show measurements of myocardial inflammation against the time since infection and those plots don’t suggest that the time has a huge influence. The native T1 plot even looks like the amount of myocardial inflammation rises as time passes.