Covid aftermath still a long, exhausting haul

Monday, 3 March 2025

Closed borders, nationwide lockdowns, and a global health crisis: looking back at the Covid-19 pandemic, five years after it began.

Business owner and entrepreneur Jenene Crossan’s new normal reads like the script from a horror movie.

Crossan contracted Covid-19 in March 2020 just before heading home to Auckland from the UK to become number 37 on the list of confirmed coronavirus cases in this country.

Her first symptom was a sore throat. Five years on she continues to be plagued by crippling pain, exhaustion and an autoimmune condition that has resulted in muscle wasting.

Medication has become a frustrating game of trial and error. Immunosuppressants, painkillers … one thing triggers another.

Yet despite describing the last year as a “shit show” Crossan considers herself lucky. “I have it really good, comparatively to some people. I’m very fortunate to have a lot of specialists that care and work with me but I would be one of the very few that has that.

Jenene Crossan, pictured with her dog, is one of a cohort referred to as Covid “long-haulers”, people who have developed chronic and ongoing health problems after an initial Covid-19 infection.

“We have a lot of suicides and suicide ideation with this, and people who are incredibly hard pressed to find joy in their life because of how bad it is for them. It is awful to watch that suffering, really, really awful.”

Crossan is one of a cohort referred to as Covid “long-haulers”, people who have developed chronic and ongoing health problems after an initial Covid-19 infection.

She is also probably the most well-known of New Zealand’s long Covid sufferers, having been an advocate for more research into the condition and better support of people with it. She was instrumental in establishing the Covid Registry and continues to run the country’s long Covid support group.

Sufferers have reported a myriad of ongoing symptoms, from brain-fog, fatigue and sleep issues, to muscle and joint pain, headaches, breathlessness, chest pain, and an irregular heartbeat.

Crossan in North Shore hospital in 2020.

Crushing physical symptoms aside there is also the dismissal and gaslighting — it’s all in your head — that comes with the condition.

Crossan has been on the receiving end of some pretty horrendous trolling, something that has now made her a reluctant voice. It took her almost a week to decide she would talk to The Post. But she is well past wanting sympathy.

“The misinformation and disinformation is insane; the ramifications of putting your hand up are just not very pleasant. It’s challenging, but I know I come from a position of privilege, so I feel I have a responsibility … it’s really hard to get people to be seen with long Covid because they just don’t want the abuse.”

The severity of her condition fluctuates from day to day. “I’ll get a period of time where it’s just a bit better and I can do a bit more. Then I'll end up with times like I just had, where I had to use a cane for a week because I was struggling with any kind of movement. So it’s all over the place. Learning to live with it is just my new normal.”

But if the awareness of the physical burden of long Covid—and it’s been called the illness that robs sufferers of what their lives could have been—is not well understood, the economic burden even less so.

Based on Australian research the economic cost of long Covid in New Zealand has been estimated at around 0.5 percent of GDP, or $2b, a year.

Studies show that between10-20% of people infected with Covid-19 may go on to develop long Covid, meaning some 200,000 Kiwis may be impacted by the syndrome.

“The problem is most people think Covid is over,” Crossan said. “They don’t really want to know about long Covid any more, but we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.”

This year, in the week to February 25, 700 new cases of Covid and 481 reinfections had been reported to Health New Zealand - Te Whatu Ora. Nine deaths were attributed to the virus.