23% of Adult COVID Survivors Develop Long COVID, Study Concludes

A study published in BMC Medicine estimates that “23% of adult COVID-19 survivors develop long COVID, with 56% of them—or one in eight (13%) of those infected—still experiencing symptoms at 2 years.” CIDRAP has the news.

The research team “evaluated 2,764 COVID-19 survivors from a population-based cohort established before the pandemic and followed up in 2020, 2021, and 2023 for concentrations of immunoglobulin (Ig) G antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and clinical, vaccination, sociodemographic, and lifestyle factors.” The 647 long COVID patients were compared with “2,117 infected controls without long-term symptoms.”

Between 2021 and 2023, “23% of participants developed long-COVID symptoms, with 56% of those infected in 2021 reporting symptoms for 2 years. The researchers identified three long-COVID subtypes: mild neuromuscular (51.6%), mild respiratory (20.6%), and severe multi-organ (27.8%).” The most common long COVID symptoms were “neurologic (63%), muscular (39%), respiratory (28%), and psychological and psychiatric (21%).”

Long COVID patients who were first infected during the Omicron period had “similar but fewer long-term symptoms than those infected before that time, which the researchers said could be due to milder infections or greater general immunity to the virus.” Among the risk factors include “female sex, age younger than 50 years, [and] low socioeconomic status.” Protective factors include “vaccination before infection or within 3 months after infection, Omicron variant infection, greater level of physical activity, and sleeping for 6 to 8 hours a night.”