According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), Long COVID is a multi-system illness characterised by ongoing persistent symptoms that can last for weeks or months following COVID-19 infection. Best estimates are that around 5-10% of Australians have or are experiencing symptoms persisting for more than 3 months. A significant proportion of people with long COVID report limitations on their daily activities and a reduced quality of life. Key risk factors of contracting long covid symptoms include severe COVID 19 illness, comorbidities, Female gender and being in the mid-adult age group.

Because Long COVID is so new there is little clinical evidence available around what works and what does not. There is some research underway in the U.K. involving acupuncture treatments over a six week period for Long COVID spearheaded by Dr Imogen Locke, a clinical oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. They don’t expect full results until 2025, but anecdotally Locke said, the participants receiving acupuncture so far “do seem to be responding”. "Obviously, we have to wait for when the data is unlocked," she said.

An NBC news article highlighted that many long COVID sufferers frustrated by a lack of results from Western medicine, have turned to Eastern alternatives. Many say acupuncture, in particular, has provided relief.

Lauren Nichols, a Massachusetts resident who got Covid in March 2020, estimated that over two years she had tried around 30 different pharmaceuticals to ease her migraines, brain fog, fatigue, seizures, diarrhea and other lasting symptoms.

Eventually her physical limitations — and a lack of answers — became so overwhelming that she developed suicidal thoughts.

"I was very close to not being in this world," she said.

But about three months after she started acupuncture in May 2022, Nichols said, “I could see the clouds starting to part.

"Instead of having migraines about four to six times a day at its worst, I was having migraines about two times a day. And then eventually, one time a day," she said. Now, Nichols said, the migraines and most other symptoms have resolved themselves, thanks to a combination of alternative therapies. – NBC news.com