The threat of long COVID (persistent, distressing symptoms that persist long after a coronavirus infection) has decreased since the start of the pandemic, and the decline is evident among those who are vaccinated, according to a new study.
But this decline doesn’t mean the threat of long-term COVID has gone away. And given the emergence of new infections, especially in times like today, when knowledge indicates that transmission is high, even a lower prevalence rate means that many Americans are at risk of disease. symptoms that may last months or years after the initial infection has cleared.
“We have other people in the clinic here with long COVID, and they are particularly affected, and some of them are profoundly disabled,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, studies and progression leader for Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care. System in Missouri.
The study, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that 10. 4% of people inflamed at the start of the pandemic suffered from long COVID symptoms a year after their acute infection.
But in the Omicron era, which began in mid-December 2021, when this variant became the dominant version of the coronavirus circulating around the world, 3. 5% of vaccinated people suffered from long COVID a year after their infection. infection, as did 7. 8% of the unvaccinated. other people.
“This is smart news,” said Al-Aly, a co-author of the study. Long COVID is waning. It is decreasing and the pandemic has subsided.
But it’s still concerning that long-term COVID rates remain as high as they are, Al-Aly said, especially since COVID “still affects millions of people. “
“Three point five percent is not zero,” Al-Aly said. “That’s still 3 to 4 out of every hundred Americans with a disease that, in some cases, could be devastating. “
The study was based on fitness records maintained by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which contained data on more than 441,000 veterans affected by the coronavirus between March 1, 2020 and January 31, 2022. and monitored for a year after their infection to determine if they had long-term COVID. The other co-authors are Yan Xie and Taeyoung Choi, who are also affiliated with VA St. Louis.
Any time a user becomes inflamed by the coronavirus, there is a threat that it will spread long COVID, an umbrella term used to describe a wide variety of severe symptoms that can lead to chronic disability, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control. and Prevention. Some other people have suffered a prolonged and ongoing illness since they became ill at the beginning of the pandemic, while others saw their symptoms disappear within a few months.
Long COVID symptoms come with life-interfering fatigue, brain fog, and post-exertional malaise, in which symptoms worsen with physical or intellectual exertion. Long COVID can also cause tachycardia or tachycardia, dizziness when you get up, depression, and anxiety.
Millions of American adults and youth have suffered or continue to suffer from long COVID.
There are a few reasons why long COVIDs are rarer than before.
First, the coronavirus (officially known as SARS-CoV-2) has been changing especially since it was first known in December 2019.
“We call it COVID, but in reality, COVID has changed our shape repeatedly,” Al-Aly said.
This would be why “the threat has really diminished even among unvaccinated people,” Al-Aly said. “So, even without having been affected by vaccines, only the virus itself has weakened over time. »
But as revealed, getting more vaccinated reduces the risk of long COVID.
“Vaccines do two things: First, they measure the severity of the infection,” Al-Aly said.
Second, “they really help the immune formula get rid of the virus faster,” Al-Aly said. “They defend the ability of the immune formula to eliminate the virus. . . and that is why there are fewer viruses that wreak havoc” on organs and structural formulas.
One of the leading theories about the root cause of long COVID is that the coronavirus persists in the framework long after an acute infection has ended, Al-Aly said. So if the vaccine is helping the immune formula get rid of the virus faster, it may just be the threat of the syndrome emerging.
“We know that immunity to vaccines wanes over time,” Al-Aly said. “Stay absolutely up to date with your vaccines. “
The severity of long COVID varies from user to user. Some will likely suffer from mild cognitive impairment or fatigue, but can still handle daily responsibilities such as taking their children to school or walking the dog. Others will likely suffer from “fatigue so debilitating” that itArrayArray profoundly harms them: they can’t get out of bed. . . they literally can’t do their activities of daily living,” Al-Aly said.
Long COVID can emerge, persist and recur over a period of weeks or months, according to the CDC.
There is other data that suggests that the occurrence of long COVID has decreased since the beginning of the pandemic. According to survey data, the prevalence of long COVID among U. S. adults was 7. 5% in early June 2022 but had declined to about 6% as of early January 2023, according to a report released last summer via CDCArray. Since then, the “prevalence remained unchanged. ” until mid-June 2023, some time before this report was published.
About 1 in four adults who reported having long COVID in the survey reported having significant limitations in their same usual activities, highlighting “the importance of COVID prevention, in addition to staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccination,” according to the report.
COVID and long COVID remain a greater public health risk than the flu. People get lingering headaches after battling the flu, Al-Aly said, “but there are actually many more cases of COVID than the flu. So you’re much more likely, probabilistically, to get COVID than the flu. “
Even right now, there are more people dying and being hospitalized from COVID than from the flu, Al-Aly said. The CDC estimates that there have been at least 25,000 flu deaths nationally since the beginning of October, compared to at least 46,000 COVID-19 deaths reported in the same period. Updated estimates of deaths for the last flu season will be available this fall.
In addition to getting vaccinated, other tactics to prolong COVID include testing when you’re in poor health to see if you have COVID. A proven diagnosis can help others at higher risk get a prescription for Paxlovid, antiviral pills that can help lessen the severity of infections and potentially lessen the threat of long COVID, Al-Aly said.
Other measures include dressing in a mask in higher-risk situations. Al-Aly said he wears an N95 mask on planes and wears it strategically in higher-risk environments. He is also more cautious about wearing a mask due to a COVID surge, as is happening lately nationally. And dining in a place to eat is still less dangerous than dining indoors.
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