Long Covid, what it is and how it manifests itself

About 1.3 million people in the United Kingdom (2 percent of the country's population) are affected by"Long-Covid," a condition whereby symptoms persist beyond four weeks after the initial COVID-19 infection. This is reported in a national study by the Office for National Statistics.

Estimates presented in this analysis refer to self-reported long-COVID as of Dec. 6, 2021, as experienced by study participants responding to a representative survey, rather than clinically diagnosed ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 syndrome in the entire population.

Of those with long-COVID, 270,000 (21%) had an initial diagnosis of COVID-19 less than 12 weeks earlier; 892,000 (70%) had an initial diagnosis of COVID-19 at least 12 weeks earlier, and 506,000 (40%) had an initial diagnosis of COVID-19 at least one year earlier.

Fatigue continued to be the most common symptom reported as part of the experience of long-COVID individuals (51%), followed by loss of sense of smell (37%), shortness of breath (36%) and difficulty concentrating (28%). Twenty percent said that long-COVID symptomatology limited their ability to perform normal daily activities.

As a percentage of the UK population, the prevalence of long-COVID was highest in people aged 35-69 years, women, people living in more deprived areas, those working in health and social care, teaching and education.

Dr. David Strain, a professor at the University of Exeter, said, "The strong warning here is that, based on these data, more than 800,000 people were severely impacted in their daily activities in the three months after COVID-19 infection."

What is long-COVID

There is currently no universally accepted definition of long-COVID, and different studies use different definitions. Guidelines for healthcare professionals in England describe it as symptoms that persist for more than 12 weeks after an infection and cannot be explained by another cause.

The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) defines long-COVID as:

The terminology most frequently used to define the stages following acute illness from

SARS-CoV-2 is:

• Symptomatic persistent COVID-19 disease: signs and symptoms attributable to COVID-19 lasting between 4 and 12 weeks after the acute event;
• Post-COVID-19 syndrome: signs and symptoms that developed during or after a COVID-19-compatible infection, present for more than 12 weeks after the acute event and cannot be explained by alternative diagnoses.

Long-COVID includes both the persistent symptomatic form and the post-COVID syndrome.

Thus, this condition is characterized by signs and symptoms caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection that

continue or develop four weeks after an acute infection.

The most frequent general manifestations reported by people with long-COVID include asthenia

significant and persistent, anorexia, muscle weakness, relapsing fever, widespread pain, myalgias,

arthralgias, worsening quality of life. Important and persistent asthenia is the most frequently documented symptom.

However, the symptomatology of long-COVID is highly variable: symptoms may occur either singly or in different combinations, may be transient or intermittent or constant. The manifestations described so far are summarized in the table below.

Source:

• National Institute of Health
• Office for National Statistics