This is not the time to declare the pandemic to be “over”. This paper shows that the excess burden of neurological outcomes was estimated to occur at a rate of ~71/1000 people. Severity of acute case increased odds of neurological outcome, but even those with milder cases at risk
The numbers of those still affected at one year are huge on a population level. Absolutely enormous. Please do everything you can to avoid infection. I’ll be masking indoors in public with a KN95, N95, or KF94 for the foreseeable future. I hope you do, too.
It is important to note that this study used data from before mid-January 2021. This means that it was pre-vaccine. Vaccines have been shown to reduce the risk for LongCOVID, though the magnitude of effect is unknown.
Another limitation of the study is that unfortunately it is 70% white participants. The risk of LongCOVID increases with hospitalization, and African American and Hispanic individuals are twice as likely to be hospitalized with COVID19 compared to whites.
For more on disparities related to LongCOVID, please read here. There are extremely serious problems related to structural racism in every step of the SARS-COV-2 pathway, including long-term effects.
technologyreview.com/2022/09/20/105…People with LongCOVID often struggle with getting healthcare providers to believe them about their symptoms. This is common with other diseases, such as MS. And it’s worst of all for people of color, especially women of color.