Home pulse oximetry could be used to monitor breathlessness and other respiratory symptoms in patients with lingering symptoms following a bout of acute COVID-19, new primary care guidance suggests.

And those experiencing unexplained chest pain might require specialist referral and further diagnostic tests, warn UK clinicians, led by GP academic Professor Trish Greenhalgh from the University of Oxford.

Although most patients with mild COVID-19 recover within a few weeks of symptom onset, the doctors say about one in 10 will experience protracted recovery.

Writing in the BMJ, Professor Greenhalgh’s team provide preliminary guidance for GPs on how to manage patients with post-acute COVID-19, which they define as extending beyond three weeks.