Disease of the small airways in the lungs is a potentially long-lasting effect of COVID-19, making it one of the key triggers of ‘long Covid’, finds the latest study. The new study, published in the journal Radiology, found that small airways disease was found to be occurring independently of the infection severity. The research, conducted by a team at University of Iowa led by Alejandro P. Comellas, a professor of internal medicine and faculty in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, compared 100 CT findings in people who had COVID-19 and persistent symptoms with those of a healthy control group. The study observed that air trapping on expiratory chest CT images in the COVID-19 group in eight of the nine participants who underwent imaging more than 200 days after diagnosis. The team, however, intends to follow the patients in the study registry and see how many improve and recover and how many remain with abnormal findings.