January 27, 2023 – Nearly 36% of George Washington University students and college with a history of COVID-19 reported symptoms consistent with Long COVID in a brand new study.
With a mean age of 23, the study is exclusive in that it examines predominantly healthy, young adults and offers a rare take a look at Long COVID in a university community.
The more symptoms you experience during COVID, the greater your risk of long COVID, the researchers found. This is consistent with previous studies. And the more vaccinations and booster shots you get against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, the lower your risk of long COVID.
Women were more regularly affected than men. Those who currently or previously smoked, sought medical take care of COVID and received antibody treatment were also related to the next risk of developing long-COVID disease.
Lead writer Megan Landry, DrPH, MPH, and her colleagues previously studied students, staff and college at George Washington University in Washington, DC, who tested positive for COVID after which found symptoms that continued 28 days or more after their 10-day isolation period.
“We began to see that individuals … were showing symptoms even longer than the typical isolation period,” Landry says. So they developed a questionnaire to learn how long these symptoms lasted and the way many individuals were affected.
The list of possible symptoms was long and included difficulty pondering, fatigue, lack of smell or taste, shortness of breath and more.
The The study was published online on Thursday within the CDCs Emerging infectious diseases diary. The results are based on records and responses from 1,388 students, faculty and staff from July 2021 to March 2022.
People had a median of 4 long-COVID symptoms, about 63% were women and 56% were non-Hispanic white. About three-quarters were students and the remainder were faculty and staff.
The finding that 36% of individuals with a history of COVID reported long-COVID symptoms didn't surprise Landry.
“Based on the currently available literature, the prevalence of Long COVID is between 10% and 80%,” she says. “We thought we would be somewhere in between.”
In contrast, this figure appeared to Eric Topol, MD, editor-in-chief ofMedscape, WebMD's sister site for healthcare professionals.
“That's really high,” says Topol, who can also be founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, Calif. Topol says most studies estimate that about 10% of individuals with a history of acute infection will develop long COVID.
Even at 10%, which should be an underestimate, a really large number of individuals worldwide are affected.
“At least 65 million people worldwide suffer from Long COVID, based on a conservative estimate of 10% of those infected and more than 651 million documented COVID-19 cases worldwide; the number is likely much higher due to many undocumented cases,” Topol and colleagues write in a long COVID review article published earlier this month in Nature Reviews Microbiology.
Topol agrees that the study is exclusive in that it examines younger adults. Long COVID is way more common in middle-aged people, those of their 30s and 40s, than in college students, he says.
About 30% of study participants were fully vaccinated with a primary series of vaccines, 42% had received a booster dose, and 29% weren't fully vaccinated on the time of their first positive COVID test. Those who weren't fully vaccinated were significantly more prone to have symptoms of long COVID illness.
“I know a lot of people wish they could put COVID off or sweep it under the rug, but COVID is still a real thing. We need to continue to support vaccines and booster shots and make sure people are up to date. Not just for COVID, but for flu as well.”
The research continues
“Long COVID is still evolving and we're learning more about it every day,” Landry says. “It's just so new and there are still a lot of unknowns. That's why it's important to get this information out there.”
People with long COVID often have greater difficulties with work, school, social or personal activities in comparison with pre-COVID, with effects that may last more than six months, the authors indicate.
“I think universities in general need to consider the possibility that people on their campus may be exhibiting symptoms of Long COVID,” Landry says.
In the longer term, Landry and colleagues would love to further investigate long COVID disease. In the present study, for instance, they didn't ask in regards to the severity of symptoms or how the symptoms affected on a regular basis life.
“I want to continue with that and dig deeper into how much the symptoms of Long COVID are impacting their daily study and teaching life or their campus continuity activities,” Landry says.