After contracting Covid for the third time, in May 2022, S. Monet Wahls noticed that her usual fall and winter cough became a perpetual, year-round hacking. Respiratory issues made sleeping at night challenging.
Lingering, chronic symptoms like Wahls’ illustrate the potential effect of multiple cases of Covid on one person, doctors told NBC News. While there seems to be a range of experiences each time a person gets Covid, Dr. Geoffrey Mount Varner, an emergency room physician in Maryland and Virginia, said Black people should be vigilant about avoiding multiple Covid infections. Left unchecked, the effects of the virus could devastate Black communities.
“Some of the data clearly showed that Covid impacted Blacks disproportionately, so it only makes sense that it’s going to be the same with multiple infections because there are so many people who had it,” Varner said. “And because we have more comorbidities such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity — the main drivers in terms of having a negative impact as it relates to Covid — with multiple infections the data is showing that each infection is like a health insult that will manifest itself more in the hardest-hit community, which is Black people. So, you have a sick person getting this virus more than once and the outcome is going to be different, more harmful, than white counterparts.”
According to a wide-reaching meta-analysis published in 2021, Black people diagnosed with Covid were more likely to be admitted to intensive care units.
“I’m already living with the aftermath of Covid,” said Wahls, a business consultant in Brooklyn, New York. “The health issues I had have increased to serious levels. So, people like me, who had a near-death experience with Covid and has had it two other times … we know of the effects of it going through your body and causing problems you didn’t have before having Covid.”
The virus strongly affects Black people, who…
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