what about having 2 symptoms at 7 months

The short version: two symptoms at 7 months is a better recovery signal than many symptoms, but the evidence does not give a timeline for when they will resolve.

The 2025 prospective cohort of 1,234 adults found that people who had not recovered by 6 months showed no meaningful improvement in symptom count between months 3 and 6 [1]. The median symptom count stayed at 7 for both time points. That means the window for recovery in that study closed around month 6 for most people. A 74-year-old with only 2 symptoms at month 7 is in a better position than someone with 6 or more, but the study did not track recovery past 6 months.

The 2023 case series of 3 older adults with pre-existing cognitive impairment showed variable trajectories: one continued to decline, one began to improve, and one stayed stable [2]. That is a tiny sample, but it confirms that recovery is not uniform even in older age. The 2024 narrative review on basal ganglia involvement found that fatigue at 7 months correlates with measurable brain changes: volume loss in the thalamus and basal ganglia, and altered connectivity [6]. Those changes do not resolve quickly.

The 2022 meta-analysis found that initial disease severity predicts persistent fatigue (OR 1.3, p=0.01) but not most other symptoms [11]. A healthy 74-year-old who had mild acute illness has a better outlook than someone who was hospitalized, but the evidence does not say how much better.

My call: two symptoms at 7 months is a relatively favorable presentation, but the evidence does not provide a recovery timeline from this point. The best you can say is that most people who recover do so by month 6, and those who do not tend to stay stable rather than worsen. Confidence: low for any specific timeline, moderate that the 7-month mark is past the main recovery window.