"doctors are surprised that COVID may do the same?" Doctors aren't. Epidemiologists aren't. We've been discussing and trying to study the long term effects of

"doctors are surprised that COVID may do the same?" Doctors aren't. Epidemiologists aren't. We've been discussing and trying to study the long term effects of COVID-19 infections (and there were similar studies for SARS) pretty early on - the results are just long in coming, both due to the nature of the problem itself, and the pandemic.