Knowledge about the underlying causes of the individual occurrence of symptoms during acute COVID-19 disease and during the post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 is limited. In a German COVID-19 follow-up study, we assessed whether elevated antibody responses to herpesviruses were associated with symptom occurrence in acute COVID-19 disease (n = 96 participants) and during 20 months of follow-up (n = 62 participants). Serum samples were analyzed for their antibodies to herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1 …