Researchers Reveal Who Has the Highest Risk of Long COVID

An analysis provided more insight into who may be most at risk of developing ‘long COVID.’
A nurse at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center is injected with the COVID-19 vaccine in Queens, N.Y., on Dec.14, 2020. Mark Lennihan - Pool/Getty Images
By Jack Phillips, Breaking News Reporter
Updated:
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An analysis provides more insight into who may be most at risk of developing “long COVID,” a lingering chronic set of symptoms have been associated after an acute COVID-19 infection.

While much about long COVID is unknown, some medical researchers say it has symptoms such as brain fog, fatigue, and shortness of breath that can last months after patients first contract a bout of COVID-19. Some people can recover after a lengthy period of time, while some claim that their symptoms have not fully resolved since early 2020 when the pandemic first emerged.

The peer-reviewed research paper from Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, published in the JAMA Network, involved over 4,700 participants who partook in the Collaborative Cohort of Cohorts for COVID-19 Research, who were asked to disclose their recovery time after being infected with COVID-19, according to the university news release that was published Monday.

Columbia University added in a news release that a recent study that its researchers are “still not clear what causes” long COVID but added that “people with a milder infection—including those who were vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 and those who were infected with an Omicron variant—were more likely to recover quickly.”

In the study citing reports from the participants, the median recovery time for COVID-19 infections between 2020 and 2023 was about 20 days. One in five adults had symptoms that lasted more than three months, they said.

Women and individuals with sub-optimal health before the pandemic, particularly those with “clinical cardiovascular disease, had longer times to recovery,” the researchers said in the paper. “Vaccination prior to infection and infection during the Omicron variant wave were associated with shorter times to recovery,” it added.

Individuals with chronic kidney disease, diabetes, asthma, chronic lung disease, depressive symptoms, and a history of smoking also were associated with longer COVID-19 recovery times. However, “these associations were no longer significant after accounting for sex, cardiovascular disease, vaccination, and variant exposure,” the researchers said.

“No significant multivariable-adjusted associations were observed for age, educational attainment, smoking history, obesity, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or elevated depressive symptoms. Results were similar for reinfections,” they said.

Other people who were significantly impacted the most by long COVID were Native Americans and Alaska Natives, according to the researchers, who said that “severe infections and longer recovery times were more common.”

Meanwhile, a separate study that was recently published in Emerging Infectious Diseases showed there was an 11.8 percent prevalence of long COVID during the spread of the Omicron BA.5 variant in Japan. The report’s authors analyzed results from about 25,000 adults aged 20 and older in the country in July 2022.

“The Omicron variant tends to cause less severe acute symptoms and has a similar or lower risk for post–COVID-19 condition than the previous variant,” its authors wrote in the report, published on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website. “Longer sequelae and risks for post–COVID-19 condition in persons infected with the Omicron variant compared with noninfected populations remain unknown.”

The findings came from individuals aged 20 to 69 years old who confirmed a COVID-19 infection between July and August of 2022 and who also answered a survey regarding their reported symptoms about six months after they were infected with the virus.

“Among the cases, female sex, underlying medical conditions, and severity of acute COVID-19 were associated with having post–COVID-19 condition. We recommend a longer follow-up study of the effects on daily life and socioeconomic status after infection during the Omicron-dominant wave,” the authors stated.

Multiple studies published last year found that infection from the Omicron variant was less likely to lead to long COVID than prior variants such as the Delta strain.

“In a young and healthy population, the risk of long COVID after Omicron infection, independent of vaccination status, is very low,” said Philipp Kohler, MD, with the Cantonal Hospital St Gallen and principal investigator of one of the studies. “These data suggest that the long COVID wave after Omicron infection will not be as devastating as has been feared by many.”

Jack Phillips
Jack Phillips
Breaking News Reporter
Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter who covers a range of topics, including politics, U.S., and health news. A father of two, Jack grew up in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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