Thought of the Day - June 9 2021 - Long COVID Revisited

It was late last year when I last did an update on "Long-Haulers"; those that have had COVID-19 and still have significant symptoms 12 weeks or more after contracting the disease ( Thought of the Day - December 2 - Update on Long-Hauling ). While there is a spectrum of issues, it should be noted that there are two main categories: those who have been physically damaged by the disease and thus now have a chronic morbidity, and those whose immune system has been compromised thus are still suffering from a number of issues, most commonly, lasting fatigue.

A study in the UK estimates that almost 25% of people with COVID still have some issues after 12 weeks and thus can be categorized as having Long COVID. Of those 1/3, or 6%, still have issues after a year!

Looking in more detail at those who had COVID this time last year and still have issues: 64% report some limitations in day-to-day activities and 18% report a lot of issues carrying out day-to-day activities. So to put this in perspective this means in Canada (we have not been doing any useful reporting on Long COVID here) there are probably 20,000 people who are having significant trouble on a daily basis due to COVID infection.

You might think it is the elderly that are more likely to be suffering from Long COVID. But as a disproportionate amount of the elderly died from the disease, it is the 35-69 year-olds that are most likely to be Long Haulers.

Now there is also now a new issue, one that will be even less widely reported than Long COVID. Call it "Long Vaccine" for want of a better term (remember you heard it first here). Those few, who have very serious side effects from a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, get both medical and media attention; especially if it proves to be fatal. However, there are many more whose symptoms after receiving the vaccine, while considered mild, still linger. So, after twelve weeks should be considered Vaccine Long Hauling. As vaccines have only been delivered in significant volumes since late last year, figures are only just emerging. As with Long COVID, it will likely be a year before we see the full extent of the issue. Hopefully, the percentage affected by vaccines will be far less than the COVID six percent. In addition, the proportion who are physically damaged by the vaccine most likely will be less than by COVID. Thus most Vaccine Long Haulers will have immunocompromised symptoms.

So remember when people start to say that COVID is behind us, this is not so much for the tens of thousands of Canadians who will have lasting symptoms, mainly from COVID and, hopefully, a few from the vaccines.

Cheers

Cliff