The Short and the Long, on Long Covid By Brian Simpson
Long Covid, the alleged ill health effects from unvaccinated people having Covid, then recovering, has become one argument against those advocating natural immunity, since the Israeli study showing the superiority of natural immunity over the vaccines. However, while long Covid appear to exist, the number of sufferers is much less than previously thought. As well, the laundry list of symptoms is much less severe than the adverse effects possible from vaccines. Clearly, there are risks with every course of action.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58584558?utm_source=gnaa
“One in 40 people with coronavirus has symptoms lasting at least three months, Office for National Statistics figures suggest.
In April, an ONS report put the proportion at about one in every 10.
The latest, large and comprehensive analysis suggests long Covid may be less common than previously thought.
But the condition is not fully understood and still has no universally agreed definition, leading to different studies producing different figures.
The latest ONS analysis asked two groups of people - those who had tested positive for coronavirus and those who had not - whether they had:
- fever
- headache
- muscle ache
- weakness
- tiredness
- nausea
- abdominal pain
- diarrhoea
- sore throat
- cough
- shortness of breath
- loss of taste
- loss of smell
What are the symptoms of long Covid?
About 3% of people in the study who had tested positive had at least one of the symptoms for at least three months after infection.
Among those who had not tested positive, that proportion was 0.5%, meaning one in every 40 infected people had their coronavirus symptoms last for three months or longer.
And like many other reports, the analysis suggests women, 50- to 69-year-olds and people with other long-term health conditions are the most likely to have some of these symptoms 12 weeks after a Covid infection.
People with high levels of virus in their body when testing positive are also more likely to have long Covid, the analysis suggests.
Are these the best figures on long Covid?
The ONS study is big, detailed and very carefully put together.
They looked at data from more than 50,000 people, half of whom had tested positive for coronavirus.
And they were testing people at random, so we can be pretty certain that we're comparing a group of people who had Covid with another group who didn't. That's not true for all analyses.
They asked people about specific symptoms, as well as asking people to self-diagnose in another analysis.
They say their estimates are closer to the truth than the higher estimates they gave in April, because they have long-term follow-up on a lot of people and they've improved their statistical analysis.
No analysis of long Covid is perfect, and this analysis does omit some classic long Covid symptoms.
But this is a big addition to research on the condition and one that suggests that this illness is, thankfully, less common than we may have feared.
ONS statisticians point out studies from other organisations have their own definitions of long Covid with more symptoms, focus on different people (for example some include people with suspected Covid infections alongside those confirmed by a test) and a different way of collecting data.
Their own list of symptoms didn't include "brain fog", something commonly reported by people with long Covid.
So they also asked people whether they had long Covid - rather than about the 12 symptoms on the list.
This analysis shows around one in nine people infected with the virus said they had experienced the condition.
Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of statistics at the Open University, said the report shows that what counts as long Covid is far from clear.
He added: "It does not concern me that, at this stage in the pandemic, numerical estimates about something as new and complicated as long Covid differ quite a lot - what is important is that those involved should discuss openly what needs to be done to clarify the position.
"But the need to do that should not hold up the establishment and improvement of services to help people with these conditions, however they are defined and counted."
Children and adolescents who are infected with Covid-19 rarely have symptoms that last for longer than 12 weeks, according to a review of international research.
The review, published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, suggests that long Covid in children and adolescents is less common than previously feared.
The review analysed 14 international studies involving 19,426 children and adolescents who reported long-term symptoms after Covid-19 infections.
Study co-author Prof Nigel Curtis, a paediatric infectious diseases specialist at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, said more research was needed to determine the exact risk of long Covid in young people, particularly to inform decisions about vaccinating children under 12.
“When you’re balancing the risk-benefit of vaccines, you always want to make sure the harms of the disease are more than the potential harms of the vaccine. Because the risk of the disease in children is so low, long Covid becomes an important factor.
“We don’t in fact have an accurate determination of the risk of long Covid, but it’s likely to be considerably less than many … headlines have been suggesting.”
Long Covid is a syndrome with more than 200 documented symptoms, but as a new condition, there is not yet a standardised clinical definition for diagnosis – including for how long symptoms should persist.
Curtis, who is also a professor at the University of Melbourne and head of infectious diseases at the Royal Children’s hospital, said: “Because there’s nothing we can measure and there’s no test for it, it makes it very difficult particularly when you’re trying to separate it from symptoms just due to lockdown or other indirect effects of the pandemic.”
Researchers acknowledged more work needs to be done as the review found almost all the existing studies had limitations.
In the reviewed studies, the five most common long Covid symptoms reported in children and adolescents were headache, fatigue, sleep disturbance, concentration difficulties and abdominal pain. But in studies that included control groups, the proportion of people who reported such symptoms was similar among individuals who had been diagnosed with Covid and those who hadn’t. In the majority of studies, symptoms did not last for longer than 12 weeks.
Other studies had a low response rate, which may have skewed the data. “People who respond to surveys are much more likely to be those with symptoms, so therefore you will exaggerate the rate of the risk of long Covid,” Curtis said.
Curtis sought to reassure parents without downplaying the individual impact of long Covid. “No one’s underplaying the fact that it exists … we do need to know how better to diagnose and treat the condition.”
A separate research brief produced by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute on Covid-19 in children suggests that the Delta variant has not caused more serious disease in children than previous strains, although its transmissibility has led to higher infection figures.
“Hospitalisation remains rare, and the need for intensive care is exceedingly rare in children,” Curtis said. “The majority of children admitted to hospital [with Covid] do very well and go home, and often they are just admitted as a precaution.”
The research brief also found, however, that children and adolescents with pre-existing health conditions – including obesity, chronic kidney disease and immune disorders – were 25 times more likely to have severe Covid.
To date, no Australian children have died of Covid-19. There has been one adolescent death, in a Sydney teenager who also had meningitis.
Personally, I will take my chances.
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