Physical Health

Long COVID can affect every part of the body, and it’s important to receive focused care that addresses this physical recovery. AfterCare can help you get healthy and stay healthy with specialized care, primary care and tips for self-management.

COVID-19 Centers of Excellence

NYC Health + Hospitals has three COVID-19 Centers of Excellence in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, dedicated to those recovering from COVID-19 and offering a wide range of services to keep you and your family healthy. These COVID-19 Community Health Centers are located in the Tremont section of the Bronx, Jackson Heights, Queens and Brooklyn. All three centers provide short and long-term follow-up care for those recovering from COVID-19.
The Centers of Excellence also offer the following services:

COVID-19 Testing
Lung care and supplemental oxygen
Heart care
Diagnostic radiology services
Mental health services for anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and psychological distress
Rooms with special technology to safely isolate patients who may have COVID-19 and are being tested

Learn more or call for an appointment: 212-COVID19 (212-268-4319), press 0

For other Post-COVID care clinics that offer specialized Long COVID care in New York City, click here.

Primary Care

A primary care provider (PCP) helps you in your COVID recovery.
They can:

Help prevent disease by finding risk factors
- Risk factors are things that raise a person’s chances of getting a disease. For example, cigarette smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer.
Help you manage any chronic and long-term health problems for a better quality of life
Help you find specialists if you need them

It’s recommended that people of all ages and all genders have a primary care provider.

You can call H+H’s Primary Care Hotline 844-NYC-4NYC (844-692-4692) to make an appointment with a PCP.

Self-Care / Management

Self-care and self-management are critical to recovery and reduction of Long COVID-19 symptoms. Below are some tips to help you with your symptoms so you may feel better sooner.

First, it can be helpful to start writing down and keeping track of your symptoms. We recommend keeping a daily or weekly journal of your Long COVID symptoms to help your primary care provider understand your condition, even symptoms that seem minor to you.

The more details you can include about your symptoms, the better equipped your provider can be to treat you. This includes symptom severity, how often they occur and how long they last, and whether they impact your daily routine like getting dressed, cooking, or cleaning.

You can also use AfterCare’s Navigating Your COVID Recovery Guide and Daily Symptoms Tracker as a helpful resource to track your symptoms.

In addition to keeping a detailed journal, the following strategies specific to physical health may help.

For fatigue:

Fatigue, or feeling very tired or weak, is a common symptom of Long COVID. Manage your fatigue by resting before you become exhausted.
Focus on improving your general health, and making small lifestyle changes, like eating more fruits and vegetables and moving your body a little every day.
Start slow with physical movement, and take the rest you need before you feel fatigued. This helps your body gain energy rather than pushing yourself past your body’s limits. Learn more about pacing your physical movement here.

For symptoms that affect your smell and taste:

Find out more about food home safety education.
Try smell training, which involves regularly smelling different things to “relearn” their smell, to help get your sense of smell back. You can start with smells that are familiar to you, such as coffee, vanilla, spices, or lemons. Learn more about smell training here, using scents around you.