Two new large-scale reports provide a clearer picture of the long-term effects of COVID-19 infections on Canadians and the physical care system.
A report, published Monday via Statistics Canada, found that nearly 15 per cent of people who have COVID-19 say they have had persistent persistent symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath or mental confusion three months or more after their initial infection. .
But in past stages of the pandemic, the report found that a much smaller proportion of other people inflamed since the Omicron variant arrived in Canada last year reported long-term symptoms.
Statistics Canada, which conducted the survey in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada, describes it as the first nationally representative of its kind.
A separate study, also published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), found that other people who tested positive for COVID-19 in Ontario used more hospital resources and other physical care in the months after the infection disappeared than those who tested positive. negative. .
The reports are the latest in a developing framework on the extent of prolonged COVID, an umbrella term for a variety of post-infection fitness effects.
The World Health Organization has estimated that what it calls the “post-COVID-19 state” affects 10 to 20% of those infected, however, those numbers are based on earlier stages of the pandemic. More recent studies suggest that the long COVID is now going down at a much slower rate.
Statistics Canada says its knowledge suggests that about 1. 4 million Canadian adults, about 5% of the general population, have experienced symptoms 3 months after a COVID infection. .
“This is a significant number of other people affected by the long COVID,” said Dr. Fahad Razak, an internal medicine specialist and epidemiologist at St. S. S. S. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, and former head of Ontario’s COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board. .
“Doctors in Canada’s study network were anxiously awaiting the effects of this study and the data tells us we’re like other countries,” Razak, who was not directly involved in the study, said in an interview with CBC News.
Because the survey knowledge is based on self-reports of post-COVID symptoms and not compared to an organization of uninfected people, Razak and other doctors said the effects deserve to be interpreted with some caution.
The Statistics Canada report involves the severity of people’s post-COVID-19 symptoms, or whether symptoms subsided sometime after three months.
The Statistics Canada survey found that a particularly small proportion of other people inflamed since the Omicron wave report long-term symptoms, which became inflamed in the first year and part of the pandemic.
The survey found that 25. 8% of Canadian adults who had COVID-19 before December 2021 had symptoms at least 3 months after infection.
Of those with cases as of December 2021, 10. 5% reported symptoms 3 months or more after infection.
The decline in long-term COVID rates among Canadians inflamed since last December is good news, says Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease specialist in Hamilton, who was not involved in the study.
“The other people who are suffering the most are the other people who became inflamed very early in the pandemic,” Chagla said in an interview with CBC News.
Both Chagla and Razak said the positive benefits of vaccination are likely one of the main reasons for the decrease in the frequency of prolonged COVID cases among those who became inflamed over the past year.
The survey also provides more evidence linking the likelihood of prolonged COVID to disease severity at the time of first infection.
Symptoms at least 3 months after being reported by:
36. 4% of Canadian adults who rated their first case of COVID-19 as severe;
15 consistent with the one hundred who rated their initial case as moderate;
6. 3% of those who described their initial case as benign.
Dr. Angela Cheung, a senior scientist at the University of Toronto Health Network, said the figures in the Statistics Canada report are consistent with pastArray.
“I’m glad this survey has taken a stand and we’re looking to see how many other people are affected by COVID-19 with persistent symptoms,” he said in an interview.
Cheung, who was not involved in any of the reports, also said the CMAJ study published Monday is critical in quantifying the use of higher physical activity formulas after a COVID-19 infection.
The study by researchers at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Research Institute and nonprofit research firm ICES evaluated the physical care use of more than 530,000 Ontario citizens who were tested for COVID-19 via PCR before March 31, 2021.
The researchers analyzed the demographics of those who tested positive and those who tested negative and found “significantly higher rates of physical care utilization” in the period that began at least 8 weeks after a positive test.
The researchers found a 47 percent increase in the average number of days spent in the hospital per year among women who tested positive and an average increase of 53 percent among men.
The researchers said the findings could prepare the formula for the wake-up call in the event of prolonged COVID.
Provincial Affairs Reporter
Mike Crawley is a senior reporter for CBC News and has recently covered health issues. He began his career as a journalist in British Columbia, recorded articles from 19 African countries as a freelance journalist and joined CBC in 2005. Mike was born and raised in Saint John, New Brunswick.
with files via Amina Zafar
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