New research, published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, has found that more than a quarter of the general population who were infected with COVID-19 in 2020 reported not having fully recovered after six to eight months, according to Science Daily.
Researchers from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, conducted the study.
The findings of the study indicate that the COVVID-19 infection can also lead to long-term physical and mental health issues. These long-term consequences are currently called “post-COVID-19 syndrome” or “Long COVID,” which are of increasing concern for healthcare systems.
The researchers recruited more than 430 participants from within the contact tracing system in Zurich, Switzerland. All of them had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from February to August 2020. The participants completed an online questionnaire about their health, approximately 7.2 months after their initial diagnosis.
Nearly 89% of the participants had symptoms, while 19% were hospitalized. All the patients were younger, with an average age of 47, compared to those who did not participate in the study.
The researchers found that 26% of participants reported having not fully recovered at six to eight months after the initial COVID-19 diagnosis. Of those, 55% reported fatigue, 25% had some degree of breathlessness, and 26% had depression.
The investigators also found that a higher percentage of females and initially hospitalized patients reported not having fully recovered than males and non-hospitalized patients.
Furthermore, about 40% of patients reported at least one doctor visit related to COVID-19 after their acute illness.
“This cohort study based on a respresentative, population-based sample of SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals found that 26% did not fully recover within 6-8 months after diagnosis and 40% had at least one further healthcare contact related to COVID-19,” the authors wrote.
“These findings underline the need for the timely planning of healthcare resources and services tailored to the needs of individuals suffering from post-COVID-19 syndrome,” they added.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the number of COVID-19 cases has been rising again after months of decline. The COVID-19 curve is rising with the number of new cases doubling up per day over the past three weeks, due to the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, which was first identified in India.
Dr. Bill Powderly of Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis said, “It is certainly no coincidence that we are looking at exactly the time that we would expect cases to be occurring after the July Fourth weekend.”
Even though there is a recent surge in new cases, they are nowhere near their peak of a quarter-million per day in January, according to Medical Xpress. The article was published in Science Daily.
