Studies have found that long COVID is associated with significantly increased risk of death, heart and lung problems, according to a recent report.
Even as the coronavirus (COVD-19) health emergency is nearing its end, a study recently published in JAMA Health Forum shows that many Americans continue to feel the long-term impacts of the disease, according to CNN.com.
The study examined insurance claims data for 13,435 adults with long COVID and 26,870 without COVID during a 12-month follow-up period. CNN reported that when accounting for factors present prior to infection, the study revealed that the long COVID group experienced increased mortality, with 2.8% individuals with long COVID dying compared to 1.2% of those without long COVID.
Dr. Andrea DeVries, staff vice president for health services research at Elevance Health and the lead author of the study, reported that long COVID can result in a number of symptoms, ranging from fatigue, headaches and attention disorder.
The research showed that those with long COVID were also roughly two times more likely to experience cardiovascular events including arrhythmias, stroke, heart failure and coronary artery disease, according to CNN. The risk of pulmonary embolism more than tripled, while the risk of COPD and moderate or severe asthma nearly doubled for those with long COVID, the media outlet stated when reporting on the study’s findings.