What We've Learned About Long Covid
Sorry in advance for the information overload.
Hiya!
I haven’t written much about the pandemic for a few reasons. One of which is because the virus is unlike anything we’ve encountered before, and I wanted to wait until experts knew more about it. The last thing I want is to contribute to the spread of dis or misinformation, which is also why you’ll find more source links than usual today.
And look, I know we’re all tired of the pandemic—which is another reason I’ve avoided the topic — and I want to be clear that I’m not here to judge or tell you how to live your life. However, it makes sense to check in and see what scientists are learning about Covid — because politicians may claim the pandemic is over, but science has evidence indicating that Covid is here to stay.
But perhaps the most confounding challenge of the pandemic is long COVID — a very real condition millions struggle with—but experts know little about it.
What is Long Covid?
Most ailments or diseases have consistent symptoms and affect specific areas or systems in the body. They also generally last for a particular amount of time — but long COVID doesn’t abide by any of these measurements.
Instead, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), and its many, ever-growing number, of variants can infect every part of our body. Sometimes the symptoms disappear, sometimes, they return, and other times new symptoms appear. Long COVID’s inconsistencies and dynamic conditions baffle scientists, even three years into the pandemic. But they have learned some things.
The short definition of long COVID is pretty much what it sounds like — suffering from Covid symptoms for a long time — and was coined by the very patients experiencing it. The longer, more specific, and scientific definition of long COVID, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in collaboration with CDC and other partners, is:
“Long COVID is broadly defined as signs, symptoms, and conditions that continue or develop after initial COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 infection. The signs, symptoms, and conditions are present four weeks or more after the initial phase of infection; may be multisystemic; and may present with a relapsing–remitting pattern and progression or worsening over time, with the possibility of severe and life-threatening events even months or years after infection. Long COVID is not one condition. It represents many potentially overlapping entities, likely with different biological causes and different sets of risk factors and outcomes.”
In other words, long COVID isn’t a single disease or ailment but a mosaic of over 200 possible symptoms. No test will tell you whether you have long COVID because it mixes and matches symptoms and can impact multiple bodily systems simultaneously.
Long COVID may be the result of viral particles that persists in various areas of the nervous system or brain. Or long COVID may be an autoimmune disorder that hangs out long after the initial virus has disappeared. But it could also be that long COVID triggers our immune cells to disturb our blood vessels or nervous system — it could be any or a mixture of all of the above and more.
Many symptoms don’t present until four weeks or more after the initial infection and become worse or life-threatening over time — even years after the initial infection.
Severity
The chances of developing long COVID are understandably higher after severe initial Covid infections. But mild COVID-19 infections result in long COVID too, and likely far more often than you’d assume. In fact, recent research suggests long COVID occurs more frequently after mild cases.
Researchers from the University of Washington published a multicountry study in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggesting that many mild Covid-19 infections result in long COVID. They also wrote an article about their findings in the Conversation:
We found that a staggering 90 percent of people living with long COVID initially experienced only mild illness with COVID-19. After developing long COVID, however, the typical person experienced symptoms including fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive problems such as brain fog—or a combination of these—that affected daily functioning. These symptoms had an impact on health as severe as the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury.
The results come after analyzing data from 54 studies, encompassing over 1 million people from 22 countries who experienced symptoms of COVID-19. They also found that “women have twice the risk of men and four times the risk of children for developing long COVID.”
Although, people at a socioeconomic disadvantage, especially people of color, also face higher risks. So do people who smoke, are obese, or have various health conditions, particularly autoimmune diseases. When looking at people with long COVID, the study discovered that “nearly one out of every seven” were still experiencing their long COVID symptoms a year later.
The good news is we’re a few years into the pandemic, so we know that cases of long COVID seem to disappear within a year or two. The bad news is we’re only a few years into the pandemic. So, we don’t know if long COVID can be a life-long condition or whether it ever actually goes away. Perhaps the cases that were resolved in a year will return later. We just don’t know.
Long Term Long Covid
Despite its complexities, long COVID was officially recognized as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in July 2021. This is good considering a looming wave of people suffering from long COVID is predicted to hit all populations worldwide in the coming years. Meanwhile, people currently experiencing long COVID are already struggling to receive benefits.
The United States has a population of about 335 million people, and in February 2022, long COVID was estimated to affect about 16 million — or about 4 to 5 percent of the population. By January 2023, that number has increased to 65 million adults in the U.S. — or almost 20 percent of the population.
A meta-analysis — of 41 studies worldwide, all conducted in 2021 — published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases suggests that 43 percent of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 could develop long COVID. And a survey by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics discovered that 1 in 5 adults who had Covid reported experiencing long COVID three months later.
Even if a small number of infections result in long COVID, the amount will only grow as time goes on. We’re three years in, and tens of millions of people are already suffering from and disabled by long COVID — almost 50 million in just the last year.
Long COVID isn’t going away any time soon. If anything, experts believe we’ll be dealing with the ramifications of long COVID for decades to come. Its impacts will only continue to challenge our already crumbling healthcare system.
Vaccinations
Science repeatedly shows that getting vaccinated is significantly safer and protects you more than forgoing it. Covid vaccines help prevent severe infections, hospitalizations, and death when you do become infected. For instance, unvaccinated people are nearly 16 times more likely to develop Myocarditis, or heart inflammation, than vaccinated people.
Vaccinations also reduce your chances of developing long COVID, though how much depends mainly on your other risk factors. One study from the U.K. found that people who received two doses of the vaccine had about a 50/50 chance of developing long COVID based on self-reported data from 1.2 million U.K. smartphone users. The researchers also found that:
“Almost all symptoms were reported less frequently in infected vaccinated individuals than in infected unvaccinated individuals, and vaccinated participants were more likely to be completely asymptomatic, especially if they were 60 years or older.”
However, other research suggests the vaccines offer only about 15 percent more protection — but the participants in this study were mostly male veterans with a mean age of 63. Yet another study involving 4.5 million people treated at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) hospitals indicates the number is closer to 7 percent, especially for those who avoided hospitalization. So… it seems the chances of developing long COVID for vaccinated people range between 7 and 50 percent.
Perspective Shift
I know. All of this is overwhelming, and I don’t mean to be a downer, but it’s also essential we remain informed about what’s going on. Everyone is tired of the pandemic, but being bored with something doesn’t make it go away.
Biden and other government leaders declared that the pandemic is “over” because a Florida federal judge ruled mask mandates as “unlawful,” and many people refuse to abide by public health recommendations like wearing masks or getting vaccinated. However, the pandemic is most definitely not over — continued research suggests Covid is here to stay, and it’s anything but harmless.
Only time can tell us the effects of the virus, especially long COVID, on our global and future populations. I know it’s scary and we feel helpless. Society doesn’t make it easy to avoid becoming infected, but let’s just try and stay as safe as possible.
Just as a reminder, you’re currently reading my free newsletter Curious Adventure. If you’re itching for more, you’ll probably enjoy my other newsletter, Curious Life, which you’ve already received sneak peeks of on Monday mornings.
Any payments go toward helping me pay my bills so I can continue doing what I love — ethically following my curiosities and sharing what I learn with you.
You can find more of my writing on Medium. If you’re not a member but want to be, click here to sign up! Doing so allows you to read mine and thousands of other indie writers to your heart’s content.
Lastly, if you enjoy my work and want to show me support, you can donate to my Ko-fi page, where you can also commission me to investigate a curiosity of your own! Thank you for reading. I appreciate you.
Thanks for giving it a reasonable treatment. Still can't smell much of anything two years later. 🤷♂️