According to official data, women are more likely than men to have long Covid. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and National Center for Health Statistics published this month, more than 17% of women compared to 11% of men had experienced long-term COVID at some point during the epidemic.
Long Covid was outlined as having symptoms for at least three months following infection. Over 41,000 persons participated in an online poll to gather the most recent statistics over the two weeks that ended on October 17.
According to the survey, women were also more likely to experience more severe long-term COVID. According to the findings, 1.3% of men and 2.4% of all women had symptoms that seriously restricted their daily activities.
According to the poll, more than 14% of American individuals had long-term Covid at some point during the pandemic. According to the data, 7% of American adults currently have lengthy Covid.
As per CNBC, if those numbers were representative of the entire population, 36 million adults might have had long-Covid at some point during the pandemic, and 18 million might be battling it right now.
According to the data, 2% of individuals in the U.S. experienced more severe long-term Covid symptoms that considerably restricted their everyday activities. That would be the equivalent of more than 5 million adults in the United States.
According to different research by the Brookings Institution, up to 4 million Americans are unable to find employment because of high commute times.
Numerous organ systems are affected by the wide range of symptoms that Long Covid may cause, which range from minor to incapacitating. Poor memory or brain fog, exhaustion, shortness of breath, and loss of smell are some of the symptoms that are most frequently reported, according to a new study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Long Covid was also more prevalent among women, according to the JAMA study. Women made up about 18% of Covid survivors who experienced symptoms for more than two months, while men made up over 10%. How probable someone is to get long Covid may also depend on their vaccination history and the prevailing Covid form.
According to the JAMA study, more than 17% of those who contracted the delta variation of the virus and more than 10% had omicron, while over 60% of those who had long Covid had the original virus strain that first appeared in China.
According to the study, 87% of people with long-term COVID were unvaccinated. Dr. Roy Perlis, the study’s lead author and co-director of the Center for Quantitative Health at Massachusetts General Hospital, noted that distinctions between these strains and how likely they are to cause extended Covid may reveal something about the reasons for this.
More than 16,000 persons who tested positive for Covid were examined in the JAMA study, which was published this week. A nationwide online poll known as the Covid States Project that was conducted every six weeks from February 2021 to July 2022 provided the data.
Long Covid’s fundamental etiology is still unknown to scientists. However, there is growing agreement that it is probably caused by a number of diverse illnesses rather than just one disease. To clearly describe the various types of long Covid, identify risk factors, and develop testing and therapies, the National Institutes of Health is recruiting participants for a major study called Recover.