NIH: Routine Lab Tests Not a Reliable Way to Diagnose Long COVID

Since 2021, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has enrolled 90 000 people across more than 200 clinical sites as part of its RECOVER initiative to understand, identify, and treat post–COVID-19 condition, also known as long COVID. One goal of these studies has been to discover biomarkers that can help diagnose long COVID because symptoms are so wide-ranging. Recently, though, a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that routine laboratory tests are unlikely to help achieve that goal.