Just 29% of those hospitalized in Great Britain for COVID-19 have been reported to be fully recovered after one year, according to a new study.
The findings flash a warning long COVID is going to be a common condition, Channel News Asia (CNA) reported Sunday.
The study also found long COVID to be more prevalent in women than in men, obese people were half as likely to fully recover, and those who required a ventilator were 58% less likely to fully recover in a year.
The study analyzed 2,300 COVID-19 patients who were discharged from 39 British hospitals between March 2020-April 2021, reviewing 807 of them five months and one year post-hospitalization, according to the study published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal.
Just 26% in the study fully recovered in five months and just 28.9% were fully well after one year, according to the report.
"The limited recovery from five months to one year after hospitalizations in our study across symptoms, mental health, exercise capacity, organ impairment and quality of life is striking," according to study co-leader Rachel Evans of the National Institute for Health and Care Research.
The symptoms most common for those long haulers were: fatigue, muscle pain, poor sleep, slowing down physically, and breathlessness.
"Without effective treatments, long COVID could become a highly prevalent new long-term condition," according to study co-lead Christopher Brightling of the University of Leicester.
The study remains ongoing and will revisit the health status of the subjects. The findings are going to be presented to European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, CNA reported.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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