Pima County is launching a campaign using βrelatable humor and comic storytellingβ to teach Tucsonans about Long COVID, the potentially long-lasting chronic condition that sets in long after catching the virus.
In its campaign, the Pima County Health Department depicts Long COVID as cartoon-characters, including a depiction of a COVID-19 virus thatβs been stretched from a round shape to oblong.
βThrough its βmisadventures,β readers can learn more about the illness, who it impacts, and how to prevent it,β the department said Monday in a news release.
A first look at the character will be available at Tucson Comic-Con, which runs through Labor Day Weekend. Attendees also will have the chance to βtake a photo with Long COVIDβ at the county departmentβs booth at the Tucson Convention Center event.
On the countyβs Long COVID website β www.pima.gov/longcovid β the campaignβs main character is joined alongside a gang of the most-common symptoms, dubbed βLong COVID & The Sons of Illness.β
The comics, the county says, were developed in the hope to get across a few key messages: Long COVID can impact anyone through a wide-range of symptoms which vary in severity; that it can result in chronic conditions including diabetes, heart conditions and blood clots; the best prevention is COVID-19 vaccination; and anyone with it can help researchers better understand the condition by joining studies.
The first public look at a new animation-heavy campaign by the Pima County Health Department to deliver information about Long COVID will be at Tucson Comic-Con, which runs through Labor Day weekend.
βEventually the comics will appear on County social media pages, various advertisements in local media, and people will see the character in a costume walking around at future PCHD events,β the department news release said.
Long COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control, is a chronic condition that sets in after COVID-19 infection and remains present for at least three months.
It can affect anyone, including children, and while researchers are unsure how common it is, βestimates indicate it occurs in 5% to 30% of people who had COVID-19,β the county says.
The countyβs Health Department says that symptoms may appear, disappear and come back to those affected in different combinations, as over 200 symptoms have been reported. The most common symptoms are fatigue, difficulty breathing, dizziness, chest pain, depression or anxiety and difficulty thinking or concentrating, which often is labeled βbrain fog.β
The University of Arizona is currently conducting a research study, a partnership between the colleges of public health, family medicine and the medical schools in both Tucson and Phoenix. ASU also has partnered with the UA on the study.
Researchers will study and compare two groups β people who had COVID-19 and people who didnβt β and follow them over time to see how the virus impacts their health. Participants aged 12 years and older can join the study. More information can be found at: covhort.arizona.edu
As of Aug. 10, there have been 11,042 confirmed COVID-19 cases so far this year, according to Pima County data.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that beginning at the end of September, households will be able to go to www.covidtests.gov to order four free COVID-19 tests.
Amid a new wave of infections across the U.S., the federal government is urging people to get an updated COVID-19 booster, ahead of the fall and winter respiratory virus season. Earlier this week, U.S. regulators approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine that is designed to combat the recent virus strains and, hopefully, forthcoming winter ones, too, the Associated Press reported.
Vaccine uptake is waning, however. Most Americans have some immunity from prior infections or vaccinations, but data shows under a quarter of U.S. adults took last fallβs COVID-19 shot.
The Biden administration has given out 1.8 billion COVID-19 tests, including half distributed to households by mail. Itβs unclear how many tests the feds have on hand, according to the AP.
