According to a study of over 10,000 Americans that tries to help explain the mysterious ailment, about 10% of persons seem to experience lengthy COVID After Omicron infection, a lower number than earlier in the epidemic.
The study’s preliminary findings from the National Institutes of Health shed light on the catch-all phrase “protracted COVID,” which refers to the range of potentially debilitating health issues that can persist for months or even years following even a minor case of COVID-19. These findings highlight a dozen symptoms that are particularly noteworthy.
Worldwide, millions of people have long-term COVID, which can present with a wide range of symptoms, including weariness and mental fog. Scientists are still unsure of its causes, why some people are more susceptible than others, how to treat it, or even how to properly diagnose it. The key is to clarify the condition.
“Sometimes I hear people say, ’Oh, everybody’s a little tired,’” said Dr. Leora Horwitz of NYU Langone Health, one of the study authors. “No, there’s something different about people who have long COVID and that’s important to know.”
On Thursday, the Journal of the American Medical Association published new research that analyzed over 8,600 adults who had contracted COVID-19 at different points in the pandemic. They were compared to another 1,100 individuals who had not been infected.
Long COVID.
By some estimates, roughly 1 in 3 of COVID-19 patients have experienced long COVID. That’s similar to NIH study participants who reported getting sick before the omicron variant began spreading in the U.S. in December 2021. That’s also when the study opened, and researchers noted that people who already had long COVID symptoms might have been more likely to enroll.
But about 2,230 patients had their first coronavirus infection after the study started, allowing them to report symptoms in real time -– and only about 10% experienced long-term symptoms after six months.
Prior research has suggested the risk of long COVID has dropped since omicron appeared; its descendants still are spreading. The bigger question is how to identify and help those who already have long COVID.
The new study zeroed in on a dozen symptoms that may help define long COVID: fatigue; brain fog; dizziness; gastrointestinal symptoms; heart palpitations; sexual problems; loss of smell or taste; thirst; chronic cough; chest pain; worsening symptoms after activity and abnormal movements.
The researchers assigned scores to the symptoms, seeking to establish a threshold that eventually could help ensure similar patients are enrolled in studies of possible long COVID treatments, as part of the NIH study or elsewhere, for apples-to-apples comparison.
Horwitz stressed that doctors shouldn’t use that list to diagnose someone with long COVID — it’s a potential research tool only. Patients may have one of those symptoms, or many -– or other symptoms not on the list — and still be suffering long-term consequences of the coronavirus.
Everyone’s doing studies of long COVID yet “we don’t even know what that means,” Horwitz said.
