April 14, 2023 – The likelihood of developing Long COVID appears to diminish sharply between an individual’s first and second infection, a brand new study from the United Kingdom shows.
More than 500,000 people reported their symptoms in an ongoing survey. accordingly the British Office for National Statistics.
About 4% of adults surveyed reported having long-COVID symptoms 4 weeks after the initial infection. However, of those that didn't have long-COVID symptoms after the initial infection, only 2.4% reported such symptoms after the second infection.
“It appears that the risk of developing Long Covid is significantly lower the second time than the first time,” says Daniel Ayoubkhani, a statistician on the Office for National Statistics within the United Kingdom. said NPR.
The commonest long-COVID symptoms were fatigue, difficulty concentrating, muscle pain and shortness of breath.
The British study didn't provide any information on why individuals are less prone to develop long COVID after a second infection, but Ayoubkhani said it could possibly be because they've gained immunity from the primary infection or are simply less prone to COVID-19 infection in the primary place.
The study's conclusions are just like those of a US study on the VA medical system.
“We certainly see very, very clearly that the risk is lower with a second infection than with a first infection,” Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, an epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis who led the study, told NPR.