RTE broadcaster Joe Duffy was left in shock after hearing the devastating impact long Covid has had on people across Ireland.
Monday's Liveline was dedicated to hearing from people who were still suffering debilitating symptoms long after they had contracted the virus.
One woman explained how she had as many as 200 symptoms, while another detailed how she had so little energy the only activity she could do that day was change the bedsheets.
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Other long Covid sufferers shared the shocking sums they have spent on medical care to try and get treatment for the illness.
One of these was Gerry Reynolds who, along with his partner, contracted coronavirus in March 2020.
"Both of us are far from anywhere near where we were prior to contracting it," he told Liveline.
"I would have been a healthy 50-year-old male, my partner would have been 47 at the time and I just feel in the last two years I've aged 40 years.
"If I was to start at the top of my body, [I have] brain fog, memory loss, in the last two years I've had four sets of glasses where my eyesight is failing, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, muscle ache, kidney problems, muscle ache, joint ache.
"We were a couple who would have walked at least 50 miles every week with our dog, coupled with me playing possibly two rounds of golf.
"There are days now even two years later that we go out with our dog and after half a mile, we have to turn and go back home because we cannot carry on."
Gerry said he and his partner have been going "from one consultant to another" in order to access treatment but medics so far have been able to alleviate their symptoms.
"We have spent anything up to €15,000 privately with cardiologists...and no one can give us a solution," he said.
"I think it [long Covid] desperately needs to be recognised in this country, it has affected both our occupations.
"As bad as I am, my heart bleeds for [my partner], I think it does affect women that little bit more.
"My partner has only returned to work on a three-day week after being off for 18 months where there were days she couldn't actually physically leave the bed."
Long Covid is not being addressed seriously in Ireland, he believes, and from his experience, doctors don't understand how to treat it.
"I asked a top cardiologist in this country when the two of us visited him, and me being inquisitive, I asked him, 'Can you actually tell me what is going on?' and he just raised his hands and said we don't actually know what we're dealing with.
"And I think that's the problem."
Also on the programme was Linda Dalton who has spent nearly €9,000 undergoing tests and treatments from eight different consultants to treat her long Covid symptoms.
"I have no medical card and no VHI insurance. Basically, I was going downhill very fast, I had symptoms on every organ of my body," she said.
"I wanted to find out what was wrong with me, how badly each organ system was and could they do anything about it.
"Unfortunately in Ireland, they don’t have a long Covid clinic, in England and Europe they have disciplinary consultants. In Ireland, you have to go to a different consultant per different system.
"I have to go to a neurologist, cardiologist, respirologist, gastroenterologist, every different system you’ve to go to new consultants, pay for each visit and then pay for any subsequent MRI, CT scans or anything they need to do."
Linda added how she can experience as many as 200 symptoms of the illness.
"You could get 50 in one day, you could get 5, you could 90 in one day," she explained.
"You’re definitely guaranteed some amount of symptoms but you don’t know what you’re going to get. That’s the worst thing about this."
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