Ed Stannard | Hartford Courant
A new study involving Yale New Haven Health and other medical centers has found the symptoms of long COVID can last as long as three months after a person has tested positive for COVID-19.
The study is part of the ongoing project INSPIRE — Innovative Support for Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infections Registry. Researchers examined 1,000 people who had acute COVID symptoms and tested both positive and negative for the virus.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines long COVID as lasting for four weeks, half of the study participants who tested positive and a quarter of those who tested negative had symptoms after three months, showing that some symptoms are shared by the general public, according to a Yale University statement.
“These data are important for driving research and policy, but also for bringing light to people’s experiences,” said Dr. Erica Spatz, associate professor of cardiology and of epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine, and a first author of the study, in the statement.
“It’s validating for patients who are experiencing Long COVID, and a message to clinicians that this is common and to be prepared to take care of people with this condition,” she said.
The study adds to knowledge about the little-understood phenomenon of long COVID, whose prevalence ranges from 10% to 65% in various studies, according to the Yale release. Research varies in who is studied, length of time before following up and which symptoms are studied.
Long COVID can bring a wide variety of symptoms, affecting cognition, cardiovascular health, lung function, muscle and bone health and mental health.
“Through my own personal experience taking care of patients with Long COVID, as well as what is described in the literature, we know that the symptoms span every organ system,” Spatz said. “And so we need to be really…
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