A few months ago, a young athletic man came to my clinic, where I was a doctor of infectious diseases and an immunological researcher of COVID-19. He felt tired all the time, and, important to him, struggled with mountain biking. Three months earlier, he had tested positive for COVID-19. He is the kind of person who expects you to have a few days of mild symptoms before you fully recover. But when he walked into my clinic, he was still experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, and he could not ride a mountain bike at the level he could before.
Tens of millions of Americans are infected with and survive COVID-19. Fortunately, many survivors return to normal health within two weeks of becoming ill, but for some COVID-19 survivors – my patient included – symptoms can last for months. These survivors are sometimes called long-term, and the disease process is called ‘long COVID’ or ‘post-acute COVID-19’ syndrome. A long hauler is someone who has continued the symptoms after an initial attack on COVID-19.
Several studies over the past few months have shown that about 1 in 3 people with COVID-19 will have symptoms that last longer than the normal two weeks. These symptoms affect not only people who were very ill and hospitalized with COVID-19, but also people with milder cases.
Long COVID is similar to COVID-19
Many long-distance guards experience the same symptoms as during their initial battle with COVID-19, such as fatigue, cognitive impairment (or brain fog), breathing problems, headaches, exercise problems, depression, sleep problems, and loss of taste. or smell. In my experience, patients’ symptoms appear to be less severe than when they were initially ill.
Some long-distance guards also develop new symptoms. It can vary greatly from person to person, and there are reports of everything from hair loss to rapid heartbeat to anxiety.
Despite persistent symptoms, SARS-CoV-2 – the virus itself – is not detectable in most long-distance guards. And without an active infection, they cannot spread the virus to others.
Who are the long distance riders?
Patients admitted to the hospital due to COVID-19 are likely to have the longest persistent symptoms.
In a study published in July 2020, Italian researchers followed 147 patients admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 and found that 87% still had symptoms 60 days after being discharged from the hospital. A more recent study, published in January, found that 76% of COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China, still experienced symptoms six months after becoming ill.
This Wuhan study was particularly interesting because the researchers used objective measures to evaluate the people who report persistent symptoms. People in the study still reported persistent breathing problems six months after becoming ill. When researchers performed CT scans to look at the patient’s lungs, many of the scans showed stains that were an indispensable glass. This probably represents inflammation where SARS-CoV-2 caused viral pneumonia. In addition, the people in this study who had severe COVID-19 could not walk as fast as those whose diseases were less severe – these lung problems reduced how much oxygen moved from their lungs into their bloodstream. And remember, it was measured six months after infection.
Other researchers have found similar objective health consequences. One study found evidence of persistent viral pneumonia three months after patients left the hospital. Another study among 100 German COVID-19 patients found that 60% had myocarditis two to three months after the initial infection. These German patients were relatively young and healthy – the average age was 49 and many did not need hospitalization when they had COVID-19.
The sickest COVID-19 patients are not the only ones suffering from long COVID. Patients with a milder initial case that did not lead to hospitalization may also have persistent symptoms.
[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]
According to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 35% of non-hospitalized patients who had mild COVID-19 cases did not return to health 14 to 21 days after their symptoms began. . And it was not just in older people or people with underlying health conditions. Twenty percent of 18- to 34-year-olds who were previously healthy have persistent symptoms. In general, research shows that as many as one-third of individuals who have had COVID-19 and who have not been hospitalized will still experience symptoms until three months later.
To put these numbers in context, only 10% of people who get the flu are still sick after 14 days.
Long-term symptoms, long-term effects
The medical community still does not know how long these symptoms will last or why they occur.
According to recent research that has yet to be judged by the peer, many long-distance guards are unable to return to work or do normal activities due to brain fog, pain, or debilitating fatigue. Before my patient became ill, he climbed a mountain in our Colorado town almost every day. It took him four months to recover to the point that he could climb there again.
SARS-CoV-2 harms people in more ways than the medical community originally acknowledged. At Colorado State University, my colleagues and I study long-term endeavors and examine whether imbalances in the immune system play a role in their disease process. Our team and many others work diligently to identify long-distance caregivers, to better understand why symptoms persist and, more importantly, to find out how the medical community can help.
This article was published from The Conversation, a non-profit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Stephanie LaVergne, Colorado State University.
Read more:
Stephanie LaVergne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has not disclosed any applicable commitments outside of their academic appointment.