‘I Feel like I Am Still Sick, Because There Is Long COVID after COVID’: An Ethnographic Study of the Illness Experience of COVID-19 Survivors in a Chinese Society

Siu, Judy

Background: As of 22 November 2023, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a global health crisis, has resulted in around 772 million cases and more than 6 million deaths globally. Hong Kong recorded approximately 2.91 million confirmed cases by August 2023. The World Health Organization declared the pandemic over in May 2023. However, many COVID-19 survivors still suffer from the post-COVID condition or “long COVID”, remaining in a state of illness. This study argues that the survivors’ illness experience should be viewed through the lens of political economy and the capitalist world system as outlined in the Critical Medical Anthropology framework.

Methods: A qualitative study using ethnography and individual semi-structured interviews was conducted in two harmonica classes exclusively for survivors to explore the experiences of COVID-19 survivors. The ethnographic part of the study, which involved comprehensive participant observation, was carried out with 46 survivors from May 2022 to May 2023. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with another 30 survivors from January to April 2023, all in Hong Kong.

Results: This article investigates the subjective experiences of the participants by linking up the social context and structure as explanation following the political economy and the social hierarchy concept delineated from the capitalist world system according to the Critical Medical Anthropology framework. Their experiences were shaped by the medical concept of “long COVID”, which made them feel perpetually ill and stigmatized. Power disparities arising from the capitalist world system between medical doctors and patients play a significant role in shaping this stigma.

Conclusion: The participants’ post-COVID experiences, described as “long COVID”, are a sociocultural byproduct of biomedical dominance and medicalization. The idea of their post-COVID experience as “long COVID” stems from the dominance of biomedicine and its propensity to medicalize conditions, keeping survivors under continuous biomedical and medical control even after recovery.