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“Co-production” is becoming an increasingly popular term in policymaking, governance, and research. While the shift from engagement and involvement to co-production in health care holds the promise of revolutionising health services and research, it is not always evident what counts as co-production: what is being produced, under what circumstances, and with what implications for participants. We discuss these questions and propose that co-production can be understood as an exploratory space and a generative process that leads to different, and sometimes unexpected, forms of knowledge, values, and social relations. By opening up this discussion, we hope to stimulate future debates on co-production as well as draw out ways of thinking differently about collaboration and participation in health care and research.Part of the title of this article is inspired by the book “The Social Construction of What?” by Ian Hacking (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2000).

Background: Research imperatives around COVID-19 require an embrace of its complexity by the inclusion of multi-dimensional perspectives such as lived experiences of persons diagnosed with the disease. This study documents the symptom trends and timelines of COVID-19 as self-reported by individuals in addition to the psychosocial sequelae associated with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. Methods: This study followed an explorative qualitative design and included curated online dairies and interviews of individuals diagnosed with COVID-19. Judgemental convenient sampling was used to access 28 self-reports via digital media between 05 March and 05 April 2020. Demographic details were extracted where possible and included a diversity of cases. Data were analysed thematically using inductive reasoning. Results: Reports revealed a plethora of symptoms associated with the pulmonary system like shortness of breath and cough while another group of symptoms shows extra-pulmonary affectations. The lived experience of these individuals as analysed from their self-reports generated ve emergent themes followed after analysis which included (i) the variability of the severity and presentation of the disease, (ii) the 3F (fright, ght or ight) response, (iii) moral obligation and personal agency, (iv) voicing vulnerabilities and harnessing hope, (v) silencing stigma. Conclusions: COVID-19 presents with biopsychosocial affectation on the person. A multidimensional approach is required from all concerned to mitigate its effects. Background Outbreaks of coronavirus infections are not new to the world. The SARS-CoV-2 is the third serious Coronavirus outbreak in less than 20 years, following Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002-2003 and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012. Researchers have compiled signs and symptoms of the COVID-19. Huang et al (1) reported that patients (n=41) suffered from fever, malaise, dry cough, and dyspnea. Chest computerized tomography (CT) scans showed pneumonia with abnormal ndings in all cases. About a third of those (13, 32%) required Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission, and there were six (15%) fatal cases. In another publication by Chen et al (2) it was reported that this disease is estimated to have a mean incubation period of 5.2 days and commonly causes fever, cough, myalgia, and pneumonia in patients. Digestive symptoms such as diarrhoea, may be a presenting feature of COVID-19 (3). Presently it appears that the descriptions of the COVID-19 symptoms are nebulous as without a positive real-time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) results there is no unique symptom that can be used for screening patients with COVID-19. An exploration into the trend and timeline of the symptoms reported by patients (4) with a positive SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis may be useful in accurately delineating COVID-19 speci c symptoms as reported by patients affected by this disease.