It is becoming apparent that Covid is not just a mild infection that goes away after two weeks but can leave sufferers with persist health problems for weeks and months. Data collected by ONS for the
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey is beginning to show the incidence of long term illness following Covid infection. They estimate that around 1 in 5 people testing positive for Covid will show post infection symptoms for 5 weeks or longer, whilst around 1 in 10 people will still show post infection symptoms at 12 weeks or longer.
Like SARS, Covid is leaving some people with significant and persistent physical symptoms characteristic of chronic fatigue syndrome. Sufferers report symptoms like muscle and joint aches, brain fog, memory problems, post exertion fatigue, shortness of breath and these symptoms do not appear to be linked to the severity of the initial infection experienced by people.
People who have experienced mild symptoms, who may not have been to hospital may not have a diagnosis but develop debilitating post-viral symptoms. This long-tail end of Covid is likely to present new challenges for managers endeavouring to maintain patient services over the next phase of the pandemic and beyond.
Data from the
Covid Symptoms Study App show that patients can have these debilitating symptoms for many months. Clinicians are now describing this pattern of post infection symptoms after ‘mild’ Covid as ‘long-Covid’ because these symptoms can persist for months (possibly years) after infection.
“We don’t know about corona, but I think it will lead to many, many cases of post-infective fatigue syndrome.”
Simon Wessely, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
The longer-term health after mild (non-hospitalised) Covid infection is
'frighteningly poor' says Michael Rutgers, the Director of Longfonds, the Dutch Lung Foundation; a charity dedicated to reducing lung disease. Longfonds conducted a
survey of 1600 people with Covid-like symptoms. The average age of those who participated was 53 years and over 85% reported having good health before Covid. After their illness only six percent said they felt well. More starkly half of the respondents reported that they were no longer able to exercise with more than 6 in 10 of those surveyed reporting they have difficulty walking and 95 percent reporting problems with simple daily activities. Ninety one percent of respondents reported that they had never visited or been admitted to hospital, and four in ten did not get diagnosed by a doctor. They are effectively invisible.
