A study of the lungs of people who have died from COVID-19 has found persistent and extensive lung damage in most cases. This finding may help doctors understand what is responsible for a syndrome known as ‘long COVID.’ People with this condition can suffer ongoing health problems for months. A report on the study appeared in eBioMedicine, a medical journal published by The Lancet. Scientists leading the research said they found some unusual characteristics of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These qualities may explain why it is able to cause such harm. One of the co-leaders of the work, Mauro Giacca, serves as a professor at King’s College London. He said the findings seem to show that “COVID-19 is not simply a disease caused by the death of virus-infected cells.” In some patients, he said, the seriousness of the disease is likely the result of these “cells persisting for long periods inside the lungs.”