New data indicates many people may deal with symptoms for months after Covid infection.
A study published in the Nature Communications journal followed 33,281 people with recent Covid-19 infections, as well as a control group of 62,957 people who had never been infected, to determine what symptoms were most associated withThis way, vague symptoms that are often dismissed ― like “brain fog” or confusion ― could be more definitively linked to long Covid.
The study also showed that vaccination may be linked to a lower risk of long Covid and was specifically connected with a reduced risk of developing seven of the 26 tracked symptoms.But if you have a mild infection and are vaccinated, that doesn’t mean you are not at risk for developing long-haul symptoms, said, an internal medicine physician who treats patients at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Post-Covid Recovery Program.
In a particularly grim finding, the study discovered that 6% of infected participants had not recovered from Covid-19 at all, while 42% reported partial recovery six to 18 months after infection. Additionally, older adults, women and people with economic challenges were more likely to suffer from long Covid symptoms.