What We Know About COVID Lately
Researchers are still searching for this confusing and debilitating disease called long COVID.
By Ziyad Al-Aly and The Conversation US
Researchers are becoming critical about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus can cause long-term COVID symptoms.
smart boy10/Getty Images
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, a publication that covers the latest research.
Since 2020, the disease known as COVID-19 has caused widespread disability, affecting the physical condition and quality of life of millions of people around the world and costing economies billions of dollars in reduced worker productivity. and general decline in the workforce.
The intense clinical effort unleashed during long COVID has resulted in more than 24,000 clinical publications, making it the most studied physical fitness in the 4-year history of mankind.
If you like this article, support our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription, you help ensure the future publication of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Long COVID is a term that describes the constellation of long-term effects on physical fitness through infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These range from persistent respiratory symptoms, such as shortness of breath, to debilitating fatigue or mental confusion that limits people’s ability to work, to situations such as heart failure and diabetes, which last a lifetime.
I’m a medical scientist and have been deeply immersed in the study of long COVID since the early days of the pandemic. I testified before the U. S. Senate. As a U. S. expert witness on long COVID, I published articles on the topic and was named one of the hundred most influential people in healthcare through Time in 2024 for my studies in this area.
During the first part of 2024, a multitude of clinical reports and articles on long COVID have clarified this complex situation. These come with information about how COVID-19 can still wreak havoc on many organs years after the initial viral infection, as well as new evidence of viral patience and immune disorder lasting months or years after the initial infection.
A new study that my colleagues and I published in the New England Journal of Medicine on July 17, 2024 shows that the risk of long COVID has decreased over the course of the pandemic. In 2020, when the dominant ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2 and vaccines were not available, about 10. 4% of adults who contracted COVID-19 developed long COVID. By early 2022, when the omicron variant predominated, this rate had fallen to 7. 7% in unvaccinated adults and 3. 5% in vaccinated adults. Adults. In other words, unvaccinated people were more than twice as likely to develop long COVID.
While researchers like me don’t yet have concrete numbers on the rate in mid-2024 due to the time it takes for long-term COVID cases to be reflected in the data, the number of new patients in long-term COVID clinics has been comparable to that of 2022.
We found that this decline is the result of two key factors: the availability of vaccines and adjustments in virus characteristics, which made the virus less likely to cause severe acute infections and may have simply reduced its ability to persist. long enough in the human body. it causes chronic diseases.
Despite the lower threat of long COVID emerging, even a 3. 5% risk is substantial. New and repeated COVID-19 infections are leading to millions of new cases of long COVID, adding to an already staggering number of other people suffering from the disease.
Estimates for the first year of the pandemic suggest that at least 65 million people worldwide have suffered from long COVID. Along with an organization of other leading scientists, my team will soon publish updated estimates of the global burden of long COVID and its impact on the global economy through 2023.
Separately, a new flagship report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine points to all the health effects that make up long COVID. The report commissioned by the Social Security Administration to understand the implications of long COVID on your disability benefits.
He concludes that long COVID is a complex chronic disease that can cause more than two hundred effects on physical fitness in all structural systems. These come with a new onset or worsening:
heart disease
Neurological disorders such as cognitive impairment, stroke and dysautonomia. This is a category of disorders that the body’s autonomic nervous system: the nerves that regulate most of the body’s important mechanisms, such as blood pressure, heart rate, and temperature.
Post-exertional malaise, a state of severe exhaustion that can occur after even minor activity, leaving the patient unable to function for hours, days, or weeks.
Gastrointestinal disorders
nephropathy
Metabolic disorders such as diabetes and hyperlipidemia or higher cholesterol.
immune dysfunction
Long COVID can affect others throughout life, from young to old, depending on race, ethnicity, and underlying physical condition. It is important to note that more than 90% of people with chronic COVID-19 had mild COVID-19 infections.
The National Academies report also concluded that a prolonged COVID generation can lead to the inability to return to work or school; poor quality of life; Decreased ability to perform life activities; and decreased physical and cognitive functions for months or years after the initial infection.
The report notes that many of the health effects of long COVID, such as post-exertional malaise and chronic fatigue, cognitive decline, and autonomic dysfunction, are not ultimately considered part of the Insurance Administration’s list of impairments. Social, but may be particularly Individual’s ability to participate in paintings or school.
In addition, physical fitness disorders resulting from COVID-19 would possibly persist for years after initial infection.
A large study published in early 2024 showed that even people with mild SARS-CoV-2 infection still experienced new COVID-19-like fitness disorders in the third year after initial infection.
These findings parallel other studies that appear to indicate that the virus persists in various organ systems for months or years after COVID-19 infection. And studies show that immune responses to infection are still evident two to three years after a mild infection. Taken together, those studies may explain why a SARS-CoV-2 infection years ago can continue to cause new fitness disorders long after the initial infection.
Significant advances are also being made in the pathways through which long COVID wreaks havoc on the body. Two initial studies from the United States and the Netherlands show that when researchers move autoantibodies (antibodies generated through a person’s immune formula and directed at their own tissues and organs) — from other people with long COVID to healthy mice, the animals begin to experience prolonged symptoms. COVID-like symptoms, such as muscle weakness and poor balance.
These studies recommend that an immune reaction believed to be responsible for generating those autoantibodies may simply be the cause of long COVID and that eliminating those autoantibodies may hold promise as potential treatments.
Despite overwhelming evidence of the widespread dangers of COVID-19, many publications recommend that it no longer poses a risk to the public. While there is no empirical evidence for this claim, this incorrect information has permeated public discourse.
The data, however, tells a different story.
COVID-19 infections continue to outpace the number of flu cases and lead to more hospitalizations and deaths than the flu. COVID-19 also causes more serious long-term health problems. The flu corresponds to reality.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Ziyad Al-Aly is director and progression of the VA St. Louis. Il is a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis.
Curated by professional editors, The Conversation offers in-depth observations and discussions on the issues affecting our world.
Learn about and share the most exciting discoveries, innovations, and concepts that are shaping our world today.
Continue:
Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has advertising relationships with thousands of clinical publications (many of them available in www. springernature. com/us). Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence when communicating clinical advances to our readers.
© 2024 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, A DIVISION OF SPRINGER NATURE AMERICA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.