Coronavirus cases in the Bay Area have been on a steady decline recently after a record-long summer surge – but for many who have diagnosed COVID-19 this year as successive waves caused by omicrons and its subtypes. Caught during, there may be possibilities of prolonged COVID. a new concern.
Millions of survivors – some of whom were vaccinated before becoming infected – have reported ongoing symptoms ranging from exhaustion and brain fog to heart palpitations and loss of smell.
But has the spread of the Omicron subvariant, including the now-dominant BA.5, changed the taller COVID picture?
While experts said there’s still a lot to learn, here’s what we know about long-term COVID at this stage in the pandemic, including how it’s diagnosed, who’s susceptible, and whether there’s any treatment. Is.
How has the variant affected the long COVID?
Omicron and its subtypes have been circulating for months, with each variant being more communicable than the next. Experts say that while some types have survived more easily than immunity from vaccines and prior infection, Omicron is less lethal overall.
In the midst of this changing landscape, experts know that “prolonged COVID does not go away” – but some evidence suggests that long-term COVID is less common than previous variants, according to Dr. Upinder Singh, Stanford University of the Recover Program is one of the chiefs. , a nationwide protracted COVID research initiative aimed at enhancing recovery.
A study published in the medical journal Lancet in June tracked thousands of Omicron patients from December 20 to March 9 who reported persistent symptoms of COVID for at least a month after infection, and compared those patients’ reports. Se Key, who contracted Delta Edition. From June 1 to November 27, 2021. It found that 4.4% of Omicron cases had prolonged COVID symptoms, compared to 10.8% of Delta cases.
“Vaccination helps reduce its incidence,” Singh said.
Phlebotomist Khaliun Gombojav prepares a BinaxNow coronavirus test card at a community testing site in San Francisco’s Mission District.
Stephen Lamm/The Chronicle“But I still tell my friends and family that it’s still important to try to avoid acute COVID-19,” she said.
However mysteries remain.
“We still don’t understand the full physiology of why some people get it and why some don’t, why some symptoms get better,” Singh said. It is also not known why COVID can attack all parts of the body “from head to toes” over a long period of time.
Dr. Steven Deeks, who leads the recover program at UCSF, said the risk of hospitalization and death with existing variants is “significantly lower,” especially if you’ve been vaccinated and your immune system is normal, So “one should not assume a virus. Is benign.”
“Many people who receive Omicron these days have symptoms that last for weeks,” he wrote in an email. “I fear that many true long may end up with COVID.”
What is the frequency of prolonged COVID?
Simply put, the frequency estimates for long COVID are “all over the place,” Deeks said.
The CDC says the proportion of people who have had COVID and those who continue to develop COVID for a long time varies, but provides some estimates based on studies:
• 13.3% at one month or more after infection.
• 2.5% on a self-reporting basis for three months or more.
• More than 30% in 6 months in hospitalized patients.
Deeks said he suspects that “real long-term COVID” occurs in about 10% to 20% of patients, “but it all depends on how the syndrome is defined.”
“The deeply disabling variant is much less common, but it does happen and is a great reason to avoid getting infected in the first place,” he said.
The big question now is whether Omicron and its subtypes are associated with a lower risk, Deeks said.
“The data is certainly starting to suggest that omicron will not be as much of a concern compared to the older variants, but then more people are vaccinated or have previously had infections,” he said. “Solving all of this will be a challenge.”
How much does vaccination reduce your risk of chronic COVID?
While Deeks said it is widely believed that vaccination helps reduce the chances of developing chronic COVID, there is no scientific consensus on this yet.
“Almost every study shows that people who were vaccinated and then became infected were much less likely to develop chronic COVID,” Deeks said — his estimate was about 50%.
But studies have changed wildly, showing a 15% to 80% reduction in risk.
One of the most recent studies, published in late May, involving 13 million participants – the largest group ever conducted in such a study – found that vaccination reduced the risk of prolonged COVID-19 by about 15%.
The additional degree of protection offered by vaccine boosters is also unclear, but “all the science points to the fact that the more immune you are to COVID, the longer you’ll live.”
A health care worker talks with a visitor at the Santa Clara County Valley Medical Center testing site in San Jose.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle
What are the symptoms of prolonged COVID?
Singh said the more common symptoms of prolonged COVID include brain fog, fatigue, headache and symptoms worsening after physical or mental effort.
Patients may be surprised that some of these symptoms may not arise until they have recovered from their coronavirus infection, she said.
“The strange thing about long-term COVID compared to other diseases is that usually if you have the flu, you have a fever and cough, and you may be coughing for several weeks,” she said. “With long-term COVID, new symptoms may develop after[infection].”
For example, a person with COVID may have a cough, fever, and headache, and then recover – and later develop brain fog as part of their prolonged COVID symptom.
Other prolonged COVID symptoms may include shortness of breath, cough, heart palpitations, dizziness, sleep problems, depression and digestive problems, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A recent report published in The Lancet Psychiatry looked at data from 1.5 million patients diagnosed with COVID between January 2020 and April 2022, finding that most long-term COVID-related mental health conditions went away over time, but The disease has many cognitive and neurological effects. No.
How is long term COVID diagnosed?
Diagnosing COVID can be difficult over a long period of time, Deeks said, because blood tests, routine X-rays and other diagnostic tests are usually normal.
“For now, we diagnose long COVID based only on symptoms,” he said. “If there is something new that can be detected when COVID was diagnosed, and it persists for a few months, then the diagnosis can be made.”
While some patients may not have particularly concerning symptoms, for others, “they can be severe and disabling,” he said.
Singh said it is important for people experiencing symptoms to make sure they are up to date on their health maintenance and to rule out other possible issues.
“I always advise people who have ongoing symptoms or new symptoms that the best person to see is their primary care doctor,” she said. “Many people didn’t have regular health visits during the pandemic, so they need to be integrated back into the system.”
What is the length of symptoms lasting longer that would qualify as prolonged COVID?
According to Singh, experts often use two definitions: symptoms that last more than a month or more than three months. He said he favors long-distance, as some symptoms may be residual from the initial infection and not true long-term COVID.
Decks are even more conservative with their definitions.
“We don’t generally say that people can have COVID for a long time, about four months,” he said.
What are the current treatment options?
At this point in the pandemic, experts said, no cure or valid treatment option exists for long-term COVID. For patients, for now the approach is managing symptoms.
“Long COVID is best managed in a specialized clinic, but the waiting list is months and in some areas more than a year,” said Deeks. “Management is now focused on physical and rehabilitation therapy, which can help.”
But treatment research is ongoing, and trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t is part of the recovery study, Singh said. The trial includes drugs and non-drug interventions such as methods to improve sleep, she said.
Is anyone at higher risk of getting COVID in the long run?
Singh said that early studies of longer COVID-19 showed that older women who had multiple symptoms during their COVID bouts were more likely to have persistent symptoms. But now his clinic is seeing patients who do not fit that profile.
Results of a survey of 100,000 COVID-19 survivors from personal genetics company 23andMe, released in late May, showed that women were twice as likely to have long-term COVID as men, and those who had depression and anxiety, They were also more sensitive. People with autoimmune diseases were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with long-term COVID, and individuals with heart problems and diabetes were nearly twice as likely.
“Anyone can get COVID for a long time,” Deeks said – although he noted that people without vaccinations “are at much higher risk.”
“Being overweight, having asthma and/or having diabetes are other risk factors,” he said. “People who were very ill during the acute infection are most at risk.”
In its risk categories, the CDC also includes people who had underlying health conditions prior to COVID.
Kelly Hwang is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: kellie.hang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ Kelly Hwang
(This story has not been edited by seemayo staff and is published from a rss feed)