With more than a full year past since China eased restrictions and let COVID-19 sweep its households, scientists are worried a unique opportunity may be slipping away to study long COVID from possibly hundreds of millions of infections in that country.

Global disease experts say little is known about China¡¯s experience with long-term COVID-19 effects, which in Britain, Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere are thought to have afflicted millions with debilitating fatigue, brain fog and other symptoms that persist for months or even years.

China¡¯s rare circumstances ¡ª relying on home-grown vaccines and mostly avoiding COVID-19 until late in the pandemic ¡ª could, these experts say, provide particularly valuable data and insights on long COVID.