Blackhawks Jonathan Toews Struggling With Long Covid, Steps Away From Ice Hockey

Chicago Blackhawks center Jonathan Toews has been off the ice for a fairly long time, having played his last National Hockey League (NHL) game back on January 28. And now it looks like he will be putting his game on ice for an even longer time. The 34-year-old Toews announced today that he’s been having a long struggle with something that’s gone long: long Covid.

Yep, long Covid, you know that thing that some politicians and personalities keep claiming doesn’t exist? Well, what’s been happening to Toews, the Captain of the Blackhawks, should be a reality check. He hasn’t even practiced with his team since February 5 and explained his absence in the following statement: “First of all, thank you to the fans and all those who have shown concern about my absence. I’m still dealing with the symptoms of Long Covid and chronic immune response syndrome. It has been really challenging to play through these symptoms. In the last few weeks, it has reached the point where I had where I had no choice but to step back and concentrate on getting healthy.” The Chicago Blackhawks included Toews full statement in a tweet:

Toews has already had quite an illustrious ice hockey career after being third person taken during the 2006 NHL draft. Two years later he became the Blackhawks captain. And about two years after that in 2010, he was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy, when he led the Blackhawks to the title. The Blackhawks captured the Stanley Cup again in 2013 and 2015 to give Toews a total of three such championships. Toews also earned the Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award in 2015. So far, Toews has had 14 goals and 14 assists in 46 games this season but he will likely have to wait for a while before adding those numbers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines long Covid, otherwise known as Post Covid-19 Condition, as “the continuation or development of new symptoms 3 months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least 2 months with no other explanation,” where SARS-CoV-2 stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. It’s unclear how many people are suffering from long Covid right now because many countries like the U.S. haven’t been very good and keeping track of and reporting long Covid cases. Studies have suggested that anywhere from 10 to 20% of people who have had SARS-CoV-2 infections may have ended with long Covid.

Now the term long Covid is fairly non-specific. It can encompass any of over 200 different symptoms. Toews didn’t mention specifically what long Covid symptoms he’s had. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that common long Covid symptoms include general symptoms (e.g., tiredness or fatigue that interferes with daily life, fever, or symptoms that get worse after physical or mental effort) respiratory and heart symptoms (e.g., difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, cough, chest pain, or irregular heart rhythms), neurological symptoms (e.g., “brain fog”, headache, sleep problems, lightheadedness, pins-and-needles feelings, change in smell or taste, depression or anxiety), and digestive symptoms (e.g., diarrhea and stomach pain).

You may have noticed another term in his announcement: chronic immune response syndrome. This wasn’t the first time that Toews has mentioned such a term. After he missed all of the 2020-21 NHL season, Toews posted the following tweet with a video on June 30, 2021:

In the video, he explained, “I just think there’s a lot of things that just kind of piled up where my body just fell apart.” He continued by sayin, “So what they’re calling it is chronic immune response syndrome, where I just couldn’t quite recover and my immune system was reacting to everything I did, any kind of stress, anything that I would do throughout the day. It was always kind of a stress response.”

Now, searching PubMed for “chronic immune response syndrome” returns the following response: “Quoted phrase not found in phrase index: ‘chronic immune response syndrome.’” This is because “chronic immune response syndrome” is currently not a widely accepted formal medical or scientific term but rather has been used by those in integrative medicine. While scientific studies have identified many different situations where your immune system doesn’t work properly or even overreacts to various external stimuli, there doesn’t seem to be enough peer-reviewed well-constructed scientific studies yet to more clearly define what exactly “chronic immune response syndrome” is or how such a condition should be managed.

Unfortunately, Toews may have a long road ahead of him. It’s not clear yet how long long Covid symptoms tend to persist. The long and the short of it is that many political leaders don’t seem to give a “puck” about long Covid. Instead, they seem to be trying to check out of the whole Covid-19 pandemic response thing and act as if the pandemic is over. No legitimate public health authority has declared the pandemic over yet. And what’s been seen with long Covid so far may be just the tip of the iceberg.