Radio and TV have neither the time nor the inclination to report anything other than superficialities. But you don't have to dig very far. Here are some examples, collected in about 20 minutes:
Patients, clinicians seek answers to the mystery of 'Long COVID'
In a recent
study posted on the preprint server medRxiv
, analysis of an international survey of more than 3,700 respondents with COVID-19 found that over two-thirds were still experiencing numerous symptoms at 6 months, with significant impacts on patients' lives and livelihoods. Respondents with symptoms for more than 6 months said they are experiencing an average of nearly 14 symptoms across multiple organ systems.
That study has not yet been peer-reviewed, but it adds to a growing body of literature on prolonged COVID-19 symptoms. An Italian
study published in
JAMA in July found that 87% of 143 hospitalized COVID-19 patients had at least one symptom 2 months after illness onset. A
study published this month in
The Lancet found that more than three quarters of 1,655 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China, had at least one symptom 6 months after discharge.
Long haulers: Why some people experience long-term coronavirus symptoms
Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) symptoms can last weeks or months for some people. These patients, given the name
"long haulers", have in theory recovered from the worst impacts of COVID-19 and have tested negative. However, they still have symptoms. There seems to be no consistent reason for this to happen.
Researchers estimate about 10% of COVID-19 patients become long haulers,
according to a recent article from The Journal of the American Medical Association and a
study done by British scientists. That’s in line with what UC Davis Health is seeing.
This condition can effect anyone – old and young, otherwise healthy people and those battling other conditions. It has been seen in those who were hospitalized with COVID-19 and patients with very mild symptoms.
What are the long-lasting effects of COVID-19? - Harvard Health
There also are people who survived COVID and have no evidence of injury to the heart, kidneys, or brain — but who nevertheless have not returned to full health. They still have fatigue, body aches, shortness of breath, difficulty concentrating, inability to exercise, headache, and trouble sleeping. Some studies find that more than 50% of people who "recovered" from COVID remain hobbled by these symptoms three months later. They can't return to work. They can't fulfill their responsibilities at home. They are being called "long haulers." Such lingering symptoms have been reported following "recovery" from a number of other infectious illnesses, including mononucleosis, Lyme disease, and SARS (another disease caused by a coronavirus). So, it is not surprising that this illness — which is similar to the illness called myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome — develops following COVID.
If you've been exposed to the coronavirus - Harvard Health.
Most people with mild cases appear to recover within one to two weeks. However, recent surveys conducted by the CDC found that recovery may take longer than previously thought, even for adults with milder cases who do not require hospitalization. The CDC survey found that one-third of these adults had not returned to normal health within two to three weeks of testing positive for COVID-19. Among younger adults (ages 18 to 34) who did not require hospitalization and who did not have any underlying health conditions, nearly one in five had not returned to normal health within two to three weeks after testing positive for COVID-19. With severe cases, recovery can take six weeks or more.
Some people may experience longer-term physical, cognitive, and psychological problems. Their symptoms may alternately improve and worsen over time, and can include a variety of difficulties, from fatigue and trouble concentrating to anxiety, muscle weakness, and continuing shortness of breath.
From ‘brain fog’ to heart damage, COVID-19’s lingering problems alarm scientists
The list of lingering maladies from COVID-19 is longer and more varied than most doctors could have imagined. Ongoing problems include fatigue, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, achy joints, foggy thinking, a persistent loss of sense of smell, and damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain.
The likelihood of a patient developing persistent symptoms is hard to pin down because different studies track different outcomes and follow survivors for different lengths of time. One group in Italy found that 87% of a patient
cohort hospitalized for acute COVID-19 was still struggling 2 months later. Data from
the COVID Symptom Study, which uses an app into which millions of people in the United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden have tapped their symptoms, suggest 10% to 15% of people—including some “mild” cases—don’t quickly recover. But with the crisis just months old, no one knows how far into the future symptoms will endure, and whether COVID-19 will prompt the onset of chronic diseases.
A paper this week in
JAMA Cardiology found that 78 of 100 people diagnosed with COVID-19 had cardiac abnormalities when their heart was imaged on average 10 weeks later, most often inflammation in heart muscle. Many of the participants in that study were previously healthy, and some even caught the virus while on ski trips, according to the authors.
