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I<\/span>n March 2020, I caught Covid-19. Fever, loss of taste and smell, profound fatigue, dry cough: the works. My life as a classical music journalist went on hold. Walking up stairs left me out of breath. Though unpleasant, I thought the illness manageable.<\/span><\/p>\n Then, after a few weeks, it got worse. All I could do was lie utterly still in a dark, silent room, concentrating on breathing. Inhale, exhale. The paramedics and doctors eventually said I was over the worst: just rest, drink water, take paracetamol. Still, I was left with ongoing, often strange symptoms. It sometimes felt as if my body had forgotten how to breathe. That was terrifying.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Cue English National Opera (ENO). This is a story about artists and medics who pooled their skills in a new way to help Covid survivors recover. It started with the UK\u2019s first national lockdown, when ENO closed the doors of its home, the London Coliseum.<\/span><\/p>\n In the weeks that followed, the company\u2019s costume designers swapped Puccini<\/a><\/strong> for PPE, and made scrubs and protective equipment for medical workers at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. By June, word was getting out that for a good proportion of those who caught coronavirus, irrespective of its initial severity, the illness stretched out for months. So I was far from alone. Sufferers soon coined the term \u2018Long Covid\u2019, embracing a dizzying array of symptoms. Common among them, as reported in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, are breathlessness and anxiety.<\/span><\/p>\n