AN inquest will be opened next week into the death of a much-loved university tutor who had been suffering from Long Covid.

Dr Ed Rooksby chronicled months of illnesses and health problems from mid-March 2020 onwards on his internet blog.

“I wanted just to record my experiences of the long limbo of Long Covid,” he wrote.

The much-loved politics lecturer at the University of York died in February this year.

A tribute on the university website describes him as a “wonderful colleague and outstanding teacher who will be remembered for his kindness, his passion for teaching and his immense intelligence".

Dr Rooksby qualified as a teacher at Cambridge University and taught in schools in different parts of the country.

He took a PhD degree in political theory at the University of York in 2008 before moving to Ruskin College in Oxford where he was a politics and social science tutor.

He returned to York in 2019 and became an associate lecturer in the Department of Politics. He also wrote a book about socialist strategy.

The university website says: “For Ed, socialist political theory was beyond a mere academic pursuit - it represented a lifelong commitment to the pursuit of justice.

"Everyone in the Department of Politics is shocked and saddened by the untimely departure of such an all-round good man. Ed will be deeply missed by all of us.”

In his blog, Dr Rooksby wrote that he believed he contracted Covid a day or two before the first national lockdown when he was served by a cashier with a cough in the city centre.

He described having mild symptoms similar to a hangover every morning.

“I didn’t have any of what were then seen as the ‘classic’ symptoms,” he said, and described how he was able to do a workout routine at home between April and August. But in that period he did experience panic attacks and after August his health deteriorated, he wrote.

He praised the university for the way it had supported him.

The coroner for North Yorkshire and York will open the inquest into his death at Northallerton on Wednesday. It is normal for inquests to be adjourned for a period after they are opened.