BUFFALO, N.Y. — Dr. Sanjay Sethi, a division chief of pulmonary critical care and sleep medicine at the University at Buffalo, took part in the creation of a long COVID-19 registry made by UB and UBMD Physicians' Group.

"This is the first beginnings of systematically approaching it, researching it, cataloging it and then I think this will lead to bigger and better things in terms of care and in terms of better research, and ultimately better treatments because that's what we need," Dr. Sethi said.

The registry is a questionnaire open to anyone 18 years old or older, and asks people to describe their symptoms in detail. Their information is confidential. Dr. Sethi says long COVID is a known problem, but there hasn't been a systematic approach to understand the extent of the problem in Western New York.

"What we want to know is, what are these different phenotypes? What are these different groups? What proportion of Western New Yorkers have brain fog as a predominant problem, or what proportion have shortness of breath as a dominant problem?" Dr. Sethi said.

Tammy Norris first contracted COVID-19 in 2020 and then got it again in 2021. Now a year later, she has symptoms of fatigue, memory loss, lack of normal taste and a limited sense of smell. Those symptoms are also symptoms of long COVID.

"I thought maybe it's cause I'm getting older, but it's been really bad," Tammy said.

Norris says she wants to join the registry.

"I feel I'm not the only one,” Norris said. “That everybody I talk to almost feels the same way and, like I said, it's different than just working or being tired. It's a different feeling and I really feel that the medical field has to get behind this.”

The registry can be found here.