Long term lung damage was one of the early things they talked about when people outside of China started really looking into the thing, as I recall. As a talking point, it kind of came and went, but it's one of those topics that sticks in my mind, personally, whereas the media basically seemed to lose interest in the idea within a week or so of the 24 hour news cycle churning.

It popped up a few times, usually as a side-comment or something when you had actual medical experts on talking about stuff. The media was always much more interested in more lurid ideas like the potential of catastrophic mass deaths or whether or not the week's developments could be spun for political ends.

I've rarely heard much concrete information on it though. I mean, partly because I don't seek out any of this stuff, I hear enough about covid already without actively seeking the topic out. But also because it's hard to get concrete information about a disease that has only really been around since it escaped from a Chinese lab around or under a year ago.

I spent a lot of the first half of the year taking extra pinches of salt whenever anyone in the media talked about the symptoms or risks associated, because they always seemed to be about two weeks behind the internet in terms of figuring that shit out.