the fears some of you hod for long Covid should be lessened with some recent studies.
You're less likely to get long COVID after a second infection than a first-NPR"It does seem that the risk is significantly lower the second time around than the first time around for developing long COVID," says Daniel Ayoubkhani, a statistician at the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom, who's been studying long COVID in that country.
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Among the adults in the survey, 4% reported long COVID symptoms persisting at least four weeks after their first infection, the survey found. In contrast, just 2.4% of those who hadn't developed lingering health problems after their first infection reported ongoing symptoms after their second case.
"That's a significant reduction in the odds," he says.
The study didn't examine why the risk for long COVID would be lower from a second infection than a first. But Ayoubkhani says there could be several reasons.
For example, the immunity people have built up from previous infections may reduce the risk of developing long COVID from the next one. "We don't know that from our data, but that's a hypothesis," he says.
Who is most at risk for long Covid-HarvardA new study of more than 800,000 people has found that in the U.S., COVID “long haulers” were more likely to be older and female, with more chronic conditions than people in a comparison group who — after getting COVID — did not have diagnosed long COVID or any of the symptoms associated with long COVID. The findings are published in the March issue of Health Affairs.
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For people who met this narrow definition, long COVID was associated with multiple common pre-pandemic conditions such as lung disease, depression, diabetes, obesity, and other common conditions, meaning that people who had these conditions before the pandemic were more likely to be diagnosed with long COVID.
Contrary to findings in many previous studies, the researchers found that pre-pandemic HIV/AIDS, metastatic cancer, and solid tumors without metastasis — markers of a suppressed immune system that are typically associated with more severe COVID-19 disease — were not associated with having a diagnosis of long COVID.
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Another challenge for researchers attempting to understand long COVID is that many of the symptoms of chronic COVID — such as respiratory and circulatory problems and mood changes — are similar to the symptoms of many conditions that seem to be risk factors for long COVID.
Explanations include that it’s just the normal progression of underlying diseases that people had before the pandemic; COVID is hastening the progression of chronic diseases; some common factor among these preexisting conditions increases the risk of a separate condition that manifests as lingering symptoms from COVID; or that all of these may be true to varying extents, the authors said.
“Answering these questions will require careful planning for data collection and further studies designed to tease out the tangled strands of long-haul COVID,” Song said. “Such work will be crucial for understanding how to deal with the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and for preparing us for future global health challenges we all could face.”
I suppose unhealthy old ladies who haven't gotten Covid yet should still worry about it, or I should say, it should be one of the many things that person worry's about. It will always fall behind things like:whatever it is them neighborhood kids are doing outside, sounds like they're having fun, somebody should put a stop to that or maybe there is a minority child with a lemonade stand at the park that needs to know his or her place.
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