The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) Infection Survey was the best estimate that we had on the number of people experiencing long covid. When it ended in March 2023, there were an estimated 1.7 million people living with symptoms of long covid lasting at least 12 weeks.1 Almost a third of these are people who first caught covid in 2020, and 40% first caught covid over two years ago. Almost 400 000 people are estimated to have had their daily activities impacted a lot by long covid.1 A recent paper by Atchison et al.2 using data from the Imperial REACT study, reported that only 31% of people who had symptoms after 12 weeks recovered within a year of their infection. After one year, rates of recovery slow even further. The chance of developing long covid was highest for those infected in 2020 (approximately 23%2), before vaccination, and likely on their first infection. Long covid symptoms also tended to last longer for those infected during 2020.