A midwife has told the BBC how "long Covid" left her in a wheelchair as Boris Johnson faces calls to compensate key workers suffering from the condition.
A total of 65 MPs and peers have signed a letter to the PM, asking for it to be recognised as an occupational disease.
Before June 2020, Jo Aitken was working as an NHS community midwife. She now needs a wheelchair to leave the house.
She says long Covid changed her life completely.
It can present as a range of different symptoms suffered by people weeks or months after being infected with the virus, even for those who weren't seriously ill when they had it.
According to the British Medical Journal, it is thought to occur in approximately 10% of people infected.
For Jo, 50, it has left her unable to work as a midwife since last June.
"It's not been easy," she said. "I hardly go out anymore because I just haven't got the energy.
"This weekend I succumbed and got a wheelchair. I can't walk more than 10 metres without needing a rest."
"I love my job, I don't like not being able to do it," she added. "But being a community midwife involves a lot of moving around, lifting babies and equipment.
"I've been getting really good care from the NHS and latterly from my employer as well."
But there is an end in sight for Jo, who was told by her doctor he expects her to make a full recovery.
"I cried with relief when he told me that," she said. "At the moment I can't really see an end to it, but him saying that, it kind of put the light at the end of the tunnel."
Two positive Covid tests eight months apart
Emma, a 32-year-old district nurse in Belfast, has tested positive for coronavirus twice but says long Covid is "far worse" than the virus itself.
"I caught Covid the first time in April last year," she said. "I was really unwell, my breathing was really bad. I went back to work after the 14 days, but relapsed quickly and ended up in hospital.
"Being a district nurse requires you to be fit, going to people's houses, but I was suffering fatigue and heart palpitations, along with aches and pains.
"I'd be on quite heavy painkillers, and some mornings when it was so bad I'd set my alarm an hour earlier just to take painkillers and be able to go to work."