PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Could long COVID ultimately become a bigger health issue than an acute COVID-19 infection?
The CDC defines long COVID as the presence of a wide range of new, returning or ongoing symptoms that people experience at least four weeks after a COVID-19 infection.
Anyone who was infected can experience these post-COVID conditions. The symptoms, ranging from fatigue and joint pain to insomnia and memory issues, can even go away and come back again.
By current estimates, 10% to 30% of people who contract COVID-19 will develop long COVID. At present, it is believed that 19% of those who had a documented case of COVID-19 still have symptoms of long COVID.
That is almost certainly an undercount because, in the research world, if a case of COVID-19 wasn’t documented, it did not officially happen. Cases go undocumented because home testing results are rarely reported, and there are many people who don’t test and could be positive.
To make things more confusing, many long COVID symptoms are common health issues that occur for a wide variety of other reasons. As with COVID-19 itself, we are still learning.
KYW Newsradio’s Medical Reports are sponsored by Independence Blue Cross.