gov.Wales Science Evidence Advice: Long Covid October 2022

https://gov.wales/science-evidence-advice-long-covid-update-october-2022

 

For a moment there I was like "Wow the NHS in Wales is collecting data", then as I read further no its just the ONS data. Then its also a bunch of other studies, none of it out of the NHS in Wales. Using tiredness, weakness instead of fatigue or PEM. The age breakdown is quite interesting, much lower prevalence in the young compared to 35+, no double hump like ME has sometimes been reported to have (clustered early adulthood and in early 40s). Still 0.83% of children and 1.09% of young adults is pretty devastating.

So the one Wales recovery programme saw 600 people (out of the ONS estimated 96,000), they had a lot of health problems including lots of depression and anxiety and "reports" of long term health problems. As far as I can tell they have no data on if they have helped anyone at all. But they do have an exercise program to aid respiratory recovery with the goal of keeping them out of hospital (is this saying the quiet bit out loud?!). But then apparently "Of the 2,431 recorded cases of people with long-COVID via GP systems in Wales, 2,226...", which is a bit weird after they just said 600 but maybe the 600 is just for respiratory exercise I am unclear on that. Just 3.5% of those recognised in GPs have been referred to secondary services. This all started in January 2021. I find it very very hard to believe that only 2431 patients went to their doctor with symptoms of long hauling out of that 96,000. That gap is every bit as big as the one that was reported in the UK earlier this year of 28000 patients of millions, it shows a massive gap between patient problems and diagnosis.

I bet its a lot more than that, they are assuming worst case a 50% loss of quality of life per year on average, whereas a lot of these people can't work at all, their lives are well below 50%.

There are a bunch of interesting summations of various data and papers in here including estimates for those out of work with Long Covid (0.56%). Lots of people impacted, not a thing being done about, minimal amounts of acceptance of people who have it from doctors and onwards referral. Sounds about as expected.