One in 5 adult COVID-19 survivors between the ages of 18 and 64 has experienced at least one health condition that could be considered long COVID-19, a May 24 study from the CDC found.
Researchers analyzed Cerner Real-World Data electronic health records for nearly 2 million patients between March 2020 and November 2021. They compared the records of those infected with COVID-19 and those who had not for 26 clinical conditions.
Patients aged 18-64 had a 10 percent to 110 percent greater risk than uninfected people of developing 22 of the health conditions. Patients aged 65 and older had 20 percent to 120 percent greater risk than uninfected people of developing the 26 conditions.
"It is sobering to see the results of this study again confirming the breadth of organ dysfunction and the scale of the problem," Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told The New York Times. Dr. Al-Aly was not involved in the study.
The study did not examine vaccination status and did not report demographic characteristics. It also did not identify which variants were linked to each case.