Nearly half of COVID-19 survivors may have symptoms of long COVID months after they were first infected, study suggests.
Wednesday, found that six months later, of the more than 31,000 patients who had had symptomatic COVID, 6% reported not having recovered at all. An additional 42% felt they were only partially recovered.
Patients who reported no recovery were more likely to be women, to have been hospitalized when they had COVID, and to have multiple underlying conditions.When the team looked at symptoms, they found the most common was tiredness, followed by headache, muscles aches, joint pain and difficulty breathing, respectively.
Patients with an asymptomatic infection were not at increased risk of experiencing symptoms months later. What's more, having received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine prior to infection reduced the risk of some symptoms including change in taste and/or smell, poor appetite, confusion and difficulty concentrating.
"Our study is important because it adds to our understanding of long-COVID in the general population, not just in those people who need to be admitted to hospital with COVID-19," lead author Jill Pell, a professor of public