Virginia Gov Ralph Northam (pictured) has still not fully recovered his sense of taste and smell a year after contracting COVID-19. Northam encourages his constituents to get jabbed to avoid complications related to 'long Covid'
Virginia Gov Ralph Northam revealed this week that he is still suffering from symptoms of 'long Covid' over a year after contracting the virus.
The Democratic governor, whose term will end in January, told The Virginian-Pilot that his sense of smell and taste are yet to recover from his September 2020 bout with Covid.
Now, Northam is pushing for Virginians to get vaccinated in order to avoid suffering the way he has.
'I'm 62, and I can deal with this,' Northam told The Pilot.
'But why take a chance, if you're 15 or 20 years old or whatever age, of having symptoms that may affect you for the rest of your life?
'Or, in the worst-case scenario, you get COVID pneumonia and don't recover and end up losing your life.'
The vaccines were not yet available when Northam contracted the virus, though he now hopes other Virginians will heed is warning and get the shots.
'I’ve had the virus and the vaccine - between the two, I'd take the vaccine any day,' he said during a news conference in May.
Northam, who is a doctor himself, has been an advocate for Covid protections such as regular testing, social distancing and vaccination. Pictured: Gov Northam posts a picture of himself getting a COVID-19 test in Chesapeake, Virginia, to his Instagram page in June 2020
Gov Northam received the COVID-19 vaccine in March, and is pushing for others in his state get the jab. Pictured: Northam receives the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and promotes the safety and effectiveness of the jabs on his Instagram page in March 2021
'Long Covid' is a common but mysterious condition where survivors of the virus still feel some side-effects months - or potentially years - later.
The condition has baffled many experts, and there is not yet any cures or treatments determined to be effective against it.
Experts can not even figure out why the condition occurs in the first place.
'The long-haulers is just a situation in which uncertainty is the major theme of everything that happens,' Dr Noah Greenspan, a New York City based pulmonary care expert who opened the nation's
