In a random sample of adults from Long Beach, California, one third of those who previously had a … [+]
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The “long” in Long Beach, California, doesn’t stand for long Covid. But a study just published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (MMWR) showed that long Covid may be affecting quite a few people in Long Beach. A survey of Long Beach residents who had tested positive for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) revealed that about a third still had health problems two months later.
Here’s a tweet from the CDC MMWR on this study:
Long Covid is when you experience health problems four or more weeks after you were first infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus, as described by the CDC. You may have heard of other names for long Covid, such as long-haul Covid, post-acute Covid-19, long-term effects of Covid, chronic Covid, or “hey Covid is not just the sniffles or a cold.” Such health problems can be continuing, returning, or even new ones that weren’t present the first time around. As can be seen in other contexts, the word “long” can be very subjective and apply to a wide variety of actual lengths. Similarly, long Covid can encompass a wide variety of symptoms that may differ greatly in how long they may last.
It’s also not yet completely clear who may be more likely to get long Covid. There just has not been enough research on long Covid or time for that matter. After all Covid-19 has only been around for about 20 months, which may seem like a long time haircut-wise but not long enough to understand how long Covid may evolve.
Here is a scene from Long Beach, California, back in March 2020, when California Gov. Gavin Newsom … [+]
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Therefore, the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services (LBDHHS) sought to shed more light on the long Covid situation in their region. So for the MMWR study, they randomly selected about three percent of the 29,594 Long Beach residents (18 years and older) who had positive PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 from April 1 to December 10, 2020. This amounted to 791 who were then contacted for follow-up interviews with 366 ending up being interviewed.
Compared to the total Long Beach population, this sample had greater percentages of people in the 25 to 39 year age range (39% vs. 25%), women (57% vs. 50%), and those identifying as Hispanic/Latino (66% vs. 40%). Prior to their initial Covid-19 diagnosis, close to one half (46%) of the participants had at least one chronic preexisting condition. Covid-19 had led to the hospitalization of 19 or 5% of the participants. The SARS-CoV-2 infection had initially led to an average of 5.26 different symptoms with 92.3% suffering at least one symptom during their initial bout of Covid-19.
Two months after their initial positive SARS-CoV-2 test result, 35.0% reported still having persistent symptoms. They had on average 1.30 symptoms with the most common being fatigue (16.9%), loss of taste (12.8%), smelling issues (12.6%), shortness of breath (12.8%), and muscle or joint aches (10.9%). In this case, loss of taste didn’t mean that they were wearing socks with sandals and smelling issues didn’t refer to body odor. They meant loss of the ability to taste things and loss of the sense of smell respectively. Of the folks who still had symptoms two months later, 55.5% had initially had severe or critical Covid-19 symptoms, 52.6% moderate symptoms, 29% mild symptoms, and 3.7% no symptoms during their initial bout with the Covid-19 coronavirus. In fact, by the time they were interviewed, which in many cases was much later than two months after their initial positive SARS-CoV-2 test, 31.4% reported still suffering symptoms, with fatigue (13.7%), shortness of breath (10.4%), and smelling problems (9.6%) being the most common.
Who were more likely to report symptoms after two months? Well, women were 2.83 times more likely than men, those with at least one preexisting condition were 2.17 more likely than those without, and those from 40 to 54 years of age were 1.86 more likely than those 25 to 39 years of age. Also, on average, women reported 2.13 times as many symptoms as men did, those with preexisting conditions 1.96 times as those without, those 40 years and older 1.73 as those between 25 and 39 years of age, and Black persons 1.95 times as White persons.
Of course, this study was far from perfect. After all, surveys and polls have plenty o’ limitations. First of all, the LBDHHS surveyed only a sample of people and not everyone who had tested positive for the virus. Secondly, people don’t always answer questions accurately. To see this, all you have to do is ask someone “how many sexual partners have you had,” without clarifying that firm handshakes do not count, that there are no group discounts, and that you will be requiring proof. The LBDHHS study did not involve examinations by medical doctors, reviews of medical records, or anything else to verify the accuracy of the study participants. Finally, just because a symptom is occurring well after a Covid-19 coronavirus infection doesn’t mean that it necessarily represents long Covid.
Nonetheless, this certainly is not the first study to show a fairly high prevalence of long Covid. In this case, prevalence of long Covid is the percentage of those suffering long Covid out of everyone who had previously tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus. A systematic review published in the International Journal of Clinical Practice identified 25 observational studies that encompassed a total of 5440 participants. In these studies, the prevalence of long Covid to range from 4.7% to 80%, with chest pain (up to 89%), fatigue (up to 65%), dyspnea (up to 61%), and cough and sputum production (up to 59%) being the most common symptoms.
All of this is further evidence that Covid-19 is not simply a die or survive situation. Some opposing Covid-19 precautions such as vaccination and face masks have been trying to make the rather ridiculous argument that only 672,970 plus people have died in the U.S. from Covid-19. This has been sort of like arguing that only part of your house is on fire or that you didn’t accidentally reveal all of your genitals during a job interview. Even so, deaths are only part of the toll of the Covid-19 coronavirus. Overlooking long Covid and those suffering from it can ignore a big part of the impact of the pandemic. The long and short of it is that this country has failed badly to control the spread of the virus. And many people will continue to live with the consequences of this failure.
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