One in ten people who have had mild COVID-19 still have persistent symptoms, such as fatigue and loss of smell, eight months later.
- The researchers compared about 300 health care workers who were infected with COVID-19 with about 1,000 who were not.
- A total of 26% of survivors had at least one symptom that lasted more than two months and 14.9% said they had symptoms that persisted after eight months.
- In the COVID-19 group, 11% said that their symptoms affected their professional, social or home life, compared to 2% in the control group.
- Only 1% to 2% of coronavirus survivors say they experience impaired concentration or memory.
People who have had mild cases of COVID-19 still experience symptoms eight months later, a new study suggests.
The researchers found that one in 10 health workers reported fatigue or loss of taste and smell more than 30 weeks after the infection cleared.
Moreover, these moderate to severe symptoms had a negative impact on their professional, social or home life.
The team at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, says the findings provide additional evidence for the importance of vaccination.
A new study found that 26% of COVID-19 survivors had at least one symptom that lasted more than two months and 14.9% said they had symptoms that persisted after eight months. Pictured: A Department of Health employee prepares New York Army National Guard soldiers to record people on iPads in New Rochelle, New York, March 14
In COVID-19, the 11% group said that their symptoms affected their professional, social or home life, compared to 2% in the control group.
For the study published in JAMA, the team collected data from the COMMUNITY study taking place in Sweden, which analyzes coronavirus immunity.
In the first wave, blood samples were collected from 2,149 employees at Danderyd Hospital in Stockholm between April 15 and May 8 last year.
Every four months, blood samples were taken and participants answered questions about long-term symptoms and their impact on quality of life.
In a third control, in January 2021, the team analyzed 323 health care workers who had had mild COVID-19 at least eight months earlier and compared them with 1,072 employees who had not had the disease until then. .
The results showed that 26 percent of those who tested positive in the past had at least one symptom that lasted more than two months, compared with nine percent in the control group.
A total of 21.4 percent said their symptoms persist after four months and 14.9 percent said their symptoms persist after eight months.
The most common long-term symptom was odor loss, recorded at 14.6 percent at least two months later and nine percent eight months later.
Completing the first three long-lasting symptoms were fatigue and loss of taste, respectively.
Eleven percent of the COVID-19 group said their symptoms affected their professional, social, or home life, compared with two percent in the control group.
“We investigated the presence of long-term symptoms after COVID-19 mildly in a relatively young and healthy group of working people and found that the predominant long-term symptoms are loss of smell and taste,” lead researcher for the COMMUNITY study Dr. Charlotte Thålin, a specialist at Danderyd Hospital and the Karolinska Institute, said in a statement.
Fatigue and respiratory problems are also more common among participants who had COVID-19 but did not occur as well.
Thålin noted that only one to two percent of COVID-19 survivors said they were experiencing impaired concentration or memory.
“However, we do not see an increased prevalence of cognitive symptoms, such as brain fatigue, memory and concentration problems or physical disorders such as muscle and joint pain, heart palpitations or long-term fever,” she said.