Most health problems resulting from prolonged COVID will linger for several months and resolve within a year of diagnosis if the infection is mild, a recent study found.
The study, published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), analyzed electronic health records from the extensive database of Maccabi Healthcare Services, the second largest health maintenance organization in Israel.
The study included the complete data of 299,855 eligible individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 between March 1, 2020 and October 1, 2021 and were not hospitalized within one month of diagnosis.
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“Although the long-term phenomenon of COVID has been feared and debated since the beginning of the pandemic, we observed that most health outcomes occurring after a mild course of the disease persist for several months and normalize within the first year,” the study concluded.
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This suggests that “mild disease does not lead to serious or chronic long-term morbidity in the majority of patients,” the study said.
Prolonged COVID, also known as post-COVID-19 conditions, refers to experiencing physical or psychological symptoms more than 12 weeks after contracting the virus, according to Health Canada.
The most common symptoms include fatigue, memory problems, sleep disturbances, shortness of breath, anxiety and depression.
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Overall, the study found that dyspnea – also known as shortness of breath – was the most common symptom of prolonged COVID, which was reported in five of six age groups, including adults aged 19-40, 41-60 and over 60 years old .
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The number of symptoms varied across age groups, with the 41-60-year-old subgroup having the highest number of long-term health outcomes from COVID, the study found.
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The study also noted that the infection would not be considered mild in the elderly if several symptoms persisted, resulting in patients being admitted to hospital.
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Patients who were vaccinated against COVID were also found to be less likely to have symptoms such as shortness of breath, according to the study. Children were found to have fewer long-term health outcomes from COVID than adults, and their symptoms mostly resolved late.
A joint report by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and Statistics Canada previously found that among adults who self-reported a positive COVID-19 test or suspected infection three or more months ago, 14.8 percent had longer-term symptoms.
The report, published in October 2022, surveyed a random sample of 29,853 Canadian adults between April 1 and August 31, 2022.
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The most commonly reported longer-term symptoms of COVID were tiredness, fatigue or loss of energy — experienced by 72.1 percent of Canadian adults.
In terms of how long such symptoms of COVID typically last, 47.3 percent of Canadian adults reported having experiences that lasted a year or more.
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