Long Covid Further Information

Long Covid:

ME/CFS:

The Office for National Statistics: Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following COVID-19 infection in the UK

1.9 million

People were living with self-reported Long Covid (2.9% of the UK population)

  • 69% Had been infected by Covid at least 1 year previously.
  • 41% were infected at least 2 years previously.
  • 79% reported that symptoms adversely affected their day-to-day activities.
  • 20% reported that their ability to undertake day-to-day activities had been “limited a lot”.
  • 72% reported that fatigue continued to be the most common symptom, followed by:
    • difficulty concentrating (51%),
    • muscle ache (49%),
    • shortness of breath (48%).

Long Covid was more prevalent in:

people aged 35 to 69 years
females
people living in more deprived areas
those working in social care
those aged 16 years and over who were not working and not looking for work
those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability.

Imperial College London: Long term health impacts of Covid-19 in England

The most common lasting symptoms

mild or severe fatigue
difficulty thinking or concentrating
joint pains
loss or change of sense of smell or taste
shortness of breath
chest tightness or pain
poor memory

People most likely to report lasting symptoms if:

they were female
had severe initial symptoms
were infected earlier in the pandemic
had pre-existing health conditions

Duration of symptomatic illness

average duration was 10 days
1 in 10 people in the study reported symptoms for more than 4 weeks
1 in 13 for more than 12 weeks
1 in 20 for more than a year
Almost a third of people reporting symptoms at 12 weeks had recovered within a year

People infected in the Omicron wave of the pandemic were 88% less likely to experience symptoms longer than 4 weeks post-infection, compared to earlier waves – which may reflect the changing levels of immunity in the population from previous exposure to the virus and vaccine effectiveness.

Sources

  • The ONS Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK: 30 March 2023.
  • The ICL study: Long-term health impacts of COVID-19 among 242,712 adults in England: October 2023.
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