Is it really "long covid" at that point, or can it be considered a different disease?<p>A lot can happen months after infection, and I think most of the population had covid at some point, sometimes without symptoms. On the other hand, many diseases manifest after the body is weakened, covid weakens the body, so the disease we call long covid manifests itself. But here covid would just be the trigger, it could have been the flu, food poisoning, or even nothing appearant. With so many people getting sick with covid, it would make sense for covid to be the most common trigger during the pandemic.