You Have To Live Your Life
A resource for COVID-19 research and information
Dr. Leana Wen
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota
Studies show long-COVID symptoms distinct from other respiratory infections, common in Marines
Archive Link
The Marines were young (median age, 18) and healthy, having passed a number of Marine physical fitness tests prior to study enrollment. The participants were asked to complete a survey about COVID infection and symptoms. Overall, 197 Marines (24.7%) developed persistent symptoms after COVID infection.
Stephanie Soucheray
MA
Date published: Oct. 25, 2024
Date archived: Oct. 28, 2024
Article on a study
Other / Professional
The Lancet
Changes in memory and cognition during the SARS-CoV-2 human challenge study
Archive Link
Patient-reported outcomes and cross-sectional evidence show an association between COVID-19 and persistent cognitive problems.
William Trender, Peter J. Hellyer, Ben Killingley, Mariya Kalinova, Alex J. Mann, Andrew P. Catchpole, David Menon, Edward Needham, Ryan Thwaites, Christopher Chiu, Gregory Scott, Adam Hampshire
Date published: Sept. 21, 2024
Date archived: Sept. 22, 2024
Study
Group of professionals
The Daily Beast
Bernie Sanders: America Must Confront Its Long COVID Crisis
Archive Link
What is deeply concerning to me is that Long COVID can affect anyone who has tested positive for COVID—from those who experienced mild symptoms to those who were severely ill. Furthermore, although you may not have Long COVID after your first COVID infection, each reinfection can substantially increase the risk of developing it.
Bernie Sanders
Senator
Date published: Aug. 15, 2024
Date archived: Aug. 15, 2024
Opinion piece
Other / Mixed
The Lancet
Incidence of hearing loss following COVID-19 among young adults in South Korea: a nationwide cohort study
Archive Link
This nationwide population-based cohort study initially identified higher risk of incident HL and SSNHL among young adults in the COVID-19 group. After IPTW, the COVID-19 groups showed 3.44-fold and 3.52-fold higher risks of HL and SSNHL, respectively, compared to the non-COVID-19 group. These associations remained significant after adjusting for metabolic profiles and lifestyle behaviors.
Hye Jun Kim, Seogsong Jeong, Kyuwoong Kim, Joon Don Lee, Yun Hwan Oh, Michelle J. Suh
Date published: July 29, 2024
Date archived: July 30, 2024
Study
Group of professionals
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Too many children with long COVID are suffering in silence. Their greatest challenge? The myth that the virus is 'harmless' for kids
Archive Link
And that, she says, is what most people fail to understand about long COVID: how serious it is, how much is at stake — how fast a healthy girl with boundless energy and big dreams can lose it all. "They think it's incredibly rare, or they don't understand that just because you had one 'nice' bout of COVID doesn't mean the next one isn't going to do permanent damage," Katie says. "People just underestimate it; they assume it won't happen to them and if it does, that someone will be there to help them."
Hayley Gleeson
Date published: June 15, 2024
Date archived: June 16, 2024
Personal anecdote
Journalist
Institute for New Economic Thinking
“Debilitating a Generation”: Expert Warns That Long COVID May Eventually Affect Most Americans
Archive Link
The danger is clear and present: COVID isn’t merely a respiratory illness; it’s a multi-dimensional threat impacting brain function, attacking almost all of the body’s organs, producing elevated risks of all kinds, and weakening our ability to fight off other diseases. Reinfections are thought to produce cumulative risks, and Long COVID is on the rise. Unfortunately, Long COVID is now being considered a long-term chronic illness — something many people will never fully recover from.
Lynn Parramore
Senior Research Analyst
Date published: June 13, 2024
Date archived: June 15, 2024
Other / Mixed
Other / Mixed
Medscape Medical News
New Data: Long COVID Cases Surge
Archive Link
Independently, advocates, researchers, and clinicians also reported seeing an increase in the number of people who have developed long COVID after a second or third infection. John Baratta, MD, who runs the COVID Recovery Clinic at the University of North Carolina, said the increase is related to a higher rate of acute cases in the fall and winter of 2023.
Tinker Ready
Date published: March 28, 2024
Date archived: March 28, 2024
Article on statistics
Other / Mixed
Texas Observer
Clearing The Air
Archive Link
He stressed that people underestimate the risk of COVID infections in general and, more specifically, the risk of repeated reinfection. Even mild cases can lead to long COVID, especially if it isn’t the first time a person has become sick. One study from Statistics Canada found that around 15 percent of people reported having persistent symptoms after their first infection. That number approaches 40 percent after the third and subsequent infections.
Kit O'Connell
Date published: March 24, 2024
Date archived: June 14, 2024
Other / Mixed
Journalist
Time
Long COVID Doesn’t Always Look Like You Think It Does
Archive Link
She knew about Long COVID, the name for chronic symptoms following an infection, because her 11-year-old son has it. But “he didn’t have anything like this,” she says. “His set of symptoms are totally different,” involving spiking fevers and vocal and motor tics. Her own experience was so different from her son's, it was hard to believe the same condition could be to blame. “I just thought, ‘It’s really coincidental that I never got well, and now I’m getting worse,’” she says.
Jamie Ducharme
Date published: Feb. 24, 2024
Date archived: March 29, 2024
Other / Mixed
Other / Mixed
The Independent
‘Finally we’re believed’: Long Covid sufferers hail new research saying they should avoid intense exercise
Archive Link
"This could be the next dementia or Alzheimer’s. People are getting worse because there’s so much misunderstanding around it by employers and everyone."
Date published: Jan. 4, 2024
Date archived: Jan. 18, 2024
Personal anecdote
Journalist
Nature Communications
Muscle abnormalities worsen after post-exertional malaise in long COVID
Archive Link
A low exercise capacity is one of the hallmark signs of long COVID, associated with a substantial burden for daily life. The ventilatory and central cardiovascular system did not limit exercise capacity in long COVID patients, but our results confirm previous suggestions of a peripheral impairment in skeletal muscle metabolism in long COVID patients
Brent Appelman, Braeden T. Charlton, Richie P. Goulding, Tom J. Kerkhoff, Ellen A. Breedveld, Wendy Noort, Carla Offringa, Frank W. Bloemers, Michel van Weeghel, Bauke V. Schomakers, Pedro Coelho, Jelle J. Posthuma, Eleonora Aronica, W. Joost Wiersinga, Michèle van Vugt, & Rob C. I. Wüst
Date published: Jan. 4, 2024
Date archived: March 28, 2024
Other / Mixed
Other / Mixed
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Long COVID will take your health, your wealth — then it will come for your marriage
Archive Link
Until 2020, Dr Putrino worked mostly with people who had suffered stroke and traumatic brain injury — typically sudden events that result in disability and big shifts in the dynamics of patients' relationships. Now, he sees those same changes rippling through the families who visit his long COVID clinic.
Hayley Gleeson
Date published: Dec. 27, 2023
Date archived: Dec. 27, 2023
Other / Mixed
Journalist
Fam Med Community Health
Association of COVID-19 with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections in children aged 0–5 years in the USA in 2022: a multicentre retrospective cohort study
Archive Link
COVID-19 was associated with a significantly increased risk for RSV infections among children aged 0–5 years in 2022. Similar findings were replicated for a study population of children aged 0–5 years in 2021. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 contributed to the 2022 surge of RSV cases in young children through the large buildup of COVID-19-infected children and the potential long-term adverse effects of COVID-19 on the immune and respiratory system.
Lindsey Wang, Pamela B Davis, Nathan Berger, David C Kaelber, Nora Volkow, Rong Xu
Date published: Oct. 13, 2023
Date archived: Nov. 10, 2023
Study
Other / Mixed
The BMJ (British Medical Journal)
Occupational differences in the prevalence and severity of long-COVID: analysis of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey
Archive Link
Public facing industries, including teaching and education, social care, healthcare, civil service, retail and transport industries and occupations, had the highest likelihood of long-COVID.
Theocharis Kromydas, Evangelia Demou, Rhiannon Edge, Matthew Gittins, Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi, Neil Pearce, Martie van Tongeren, Jack Wilkinson, Sarah Rhodes
Date published: Sept. 28, 2023
Date archived: Oct. 8, 2023
Study
Group of professionals
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Opinion: Study shows ‘long COVID’ likely to cause mass misery if treatments can’t be developed
Archive Link
But a massive new study confirms that COVID-19 — specifically, “long COVID,” which can kick in well after an initial infection — remains a significant risk even for those who had the mildest of cases.
The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board
Date published: Aug. 24, 2023
Article on a study
Journalist
The Washington Post
Many long-covid symptoms linger even after two years, new study shows
Archive Link
People who endured even mild cases of covid-19 are at heightened risk two years later for lung problems, fatigue, diabetes and certain other health problems typical of long covid, according to a new study that casts fresh light on the virus’s true toll.
Amy Goldstein
Date published: Aug. 21, 2023
Date archived: Sept. 20, 2023
Article on a study
Journalist
American Heart Association Newsroom
COVID-19 may trigger new-onset high blood pressure
Archive Link
21% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 and 11% of those who were not hospitalized for COVID-19 developed high blood pressure, compared to 16% of people hospitalized with influenza and 4% of those not hospitalized for influenza.
Date published: Aug. 21, 2023
Date archived: Aug. 28, 2023
Article on a study
Group of professionals
CNN Health
Long Covid symptoms create a greater burden of disability than heart disease or cancer, new study shows
Archive Link
“I think that we need to understand that infections lead to chronic disease and we need to take infection seriously,” even when it seems to be mild, Al-Aly said.
Brenda Goodman
Date published: Aug. 21, 2023
Date archived: Sept. 2, 2023
Article on a study
Journalist
CNBC
Long Covid has led to financial hardship for patients, research finds. Experts say these changes can help
Archive Link
A rough estimate pegs the size of the population affected by long Covid symptoms at between 7.7 million to 23 million people in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Lorie Konish
Date published: July 26, 2023
Date archived: Aug. 22, 2023
Article on a study
Other / Mixed
Urban Institute
Employment and Material Hardship among Adults with Long COVID in December 2022
Archive Link
Long COVID can affect many aspects of a person’s life, including their ability to work and afford to meet their basic needs, which can affect their recovery and long-term health and well-being.
Michael Karpman, Olivia Fiol, Susan J. Popkin, Lisa McCorkell, Elaine Waxman, Sarah Morriss
Date published: July 20, 2023
Date archived: Sept. 23, 2023
Study
Other / Mixed
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Long COVID or Post-COVID Conditions
Archive Link
(1) People can be reinfected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, multiple times. Each time a person is infected or reinfected with SARS-CoV-2, they have a risk of developing Long COVID. (2) Living with Long COVID can be hard, especially when there are no immediate answers or solutions.
Date published: July 20, 2023
Date archived: Oct. 10, 2023
Other / Mixed
Governing body
Office for National Statistics
Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK: 30 March 2023
Archive Link
Long COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 1.5 million people (79% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 381,000 (20%) reporting that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been “limited a lot”.
Date published: March 30, 2023
Date archived: Nov. 4, 2023
Statistics & Models
Governing body
48hills
Long COVID has reached the ‘Russian Roulette’ stage in the US
Archive Link
What we do know, definitively and without question, is that COVID-19 is not “just a cold,” as some right-wingers have maintained. As the Nature Reviews article notes, “SARS-CoV-2 has the capacity to damage many organ systems.”
Bruce Mirken
Date published: March 28, 2023
Date archived: July 5, 2023
Article on a study
Journalist
Trades Union Congress
Workers' experience of Long Covid
Archive Link
The Office of National Statistics (ONS) reported that, as of 1 August 2021, 970,000 people in the UK were experiencing self-reported Long Covid. The most recent data from 2 January 2023, shows that this has increased to 2 million people – this figure is bigger than the population of the cities of Birmingham and Manchester combined.
Jenny Ceolta-Smith, Polina Sparks, Lesley Macniven, Clare Rayner, Kirsty Stanley
Long Covid Support Employment Group (LCSEG)
Date published: March 27, 2023
Date archived: Oct. 27, 2023
Other / Mixed
Other / Mixed
The Lancet
Long COVID: 3 years in
Archive Link
Although the majority of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 recover within a few weeks, long COVID is estimated to occur in 10–20% of cases and affects people of all ages, including children, with most cases occurring in patients with mild acute illness.
The Lancet
Date published: March 11, 2023
Date archived: Aug. 18, 2023
Article on statistics
Other / Mixed
Scientific American
Long COVID Now Looks like a Neurological Disease, Helping Doctors to Focus Treatments
Archive Link
Some patients, Pittman says, “have the expectation that they're going to come in, and within a month they're going to be back to normal. And resetting those expectations can be really challenging. You have to be really empathetic because people's lives have completely changed.”
Stephani Sutherland
Date published: March 1, 2023
Date archived: Sept. 13, 2023
Article on a study
Group of professionals
CNBC
Long Covid has an ‘underappreciated’ role in labor shortage, study finds
Archive Link
About 18% of people with long Covid hadn’t returned to work for more than a year, according to a report by the New York State Insurance Fund, state’s largest workers’ compensation insurer.
Greg Iacurci
Date published: Jan. 30, 2023
Date archived: Aug. 6, 2023
Article on a study
Journalist
CNN
Long Covid can be debilitating, even for healthy kids
Archive Link
Children – even healthy teens and the very young – can have long Covid, several studies have found, and it can follow an infection that’s severe or mild.
Jen Christensen
Date published: Jan. 15, 2023
Date archived: March 30, 2023
Other / Mixed
Journalist
Nature Reviews Microbiology
Long COVID: major findings, mechanisms and recommendations
Archive Link
Long COVID is an often debilitating illness that occurs in at least 10% of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections. More than 200 symptoms have been identified with impacts on multiple organ systems.
Hannah E. Davis, Lisa McCorkell, Julia Moore Vogel & Eric J. Topol
Date published: Jan. 13, 2023
Date archived: Sept. 14, 2023
Article on a study
Group of professionals
WebMD
Long COVID Risk Makes It Worth Avoiding Second Infections
Archive Link
“It’s not like, ‘Oh, I’ve had one, so it’s OK. Now I can take off my mask, do what I like.’ It has health consequences for reinfections – higher mortality rate, higher hospitalization rates, higher risk of long term, lingering symptoms,” she says.
Solarina Ho
Date published: Dec. 19, 2022
Date archived: March 17, 2023
Other / Mixed
Group of professionals
CNBC
Long Covid is distorting the labor market — and that’s bad for the U.S. economy
Archive Link
The overall labor impact of long Covid is tough to quantify. Estimates suggest hundreds of thousands to millions may be out of work, at a time when there are historic levels of job openings.
Greg Iacurci
Date published: Dec. 8, 2022
Date archived: Feb. 11, 2023
Other / Mixed
Other / Mixed
The Conversation
The risk of seizures and epilepsy is higher after COVID than after the flu – new research
Archive Link
For people with COVID who were hospitalised, the point at which a diagnosis of seizures or epilepsy was most common was at nine days after infection. For those who were not hospitalised, the peak was at 41 days. In children with COVID, the peak point for seizures or epilepsy was at 50 days after infection and at that time children who had COVID were three times more likely to have epilepsy or seizures than children who had flu.
Arjune Sen
Head of the Oxford Epilepsy Research Group, University of Oxford
Date published: Nov. 18, 2022
Date archived: March 20, 2023
Article on a study
Other / Professional
Nature Medicine
Acute and postacute sequelae associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection
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The evidence shows that reinfection further increases risks of death, hospitalization and sequelae in multiple organ systems in the acute and postacute phase. Reducing overall burden of death and disease due to SARS-CoV-2 will require strategies for reinfection prevention.
Benjamin Bowe, Yan Xie & Ziyad Al-Aly
Date published: Nov. 10, 2022
Date archived: Sept. 14, 2023
Study
Other / Mixed
Time
You Can Still Get Long COVID If You’re Vaccinated and Boosted
Archive Link
For now, though, even vaccinated, boosted, and previously infected people aren’t immune to Long COVID. Any infection could lead to lingering complications, which underscores the importance of limiting exposure to the virus as much as possible.
Jamie Ducharme
Date published: Nov. 8, 2022
Date archived: March 31, 2024
Article on a study
Other / Mixed
Boston Globe
Long COVID affects millions. What is being done about it?
Archive Link
Long COVID costs at least $60 billion up to as much as $100 billion a year in just lost wages. The annual cost of medical care for these patients may be another $100 billion. And those numbers don’t factor in decreased productivity from people working with severe fatigue and brain fog, or family members of long COVID patients who must reduce their work hours to take on caretaker roles. Acute COVID is a pandemic; long COVID could be a mass disabling event.
Katie Bach and David Cutler
Date published: Oct. 31, 2022
Date archived: Sept. 5, 2023
Article on statistics
Journalist
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
Prevalence of post COVID-19 condition symptoms: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort study data, stratified by recruitment setting
Archive Link
An extremely wide range of physical and psychological symptoms are reported by individuals at least 12 weeks after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Date published: Oct. 31, 2022
Date archived: May 13, 2023
Study
Other / Mixed
Forbes
The New Disability And How Millions Of Americans Got Too Sick With Covid-19 To Work
Archive Link
What puzzles me is why it is so difficult to understand that long Covid can be disabling and that not working isn’t really much of a choice. It is that getting well is the job. When most people do recovery, they do want to and need to work.
Denise Brodey
Senior Contributor - Award-winning advocate for disabled jobseekers and employees.
Date published: Oct. 26, 2022
Date archived: Sept. 5, 2023
Personal anecdote
Journalist
National Bureau of Economic Research
The Impacts of Covid-19 Illnesses on Workers
Archive Link
We show that Covid-19 illnesses persistently reduce labor supply. Using an event study, we estimate that workers with week-long Covid-19 work absences are 7 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force one year later compared to otherwise-similar workers who do not miss a week of work for health reasons.
Gopi Shah Goda & Evan J. Soltas
Date published: Sept. 1, 2022
Study
Other / Mixed
Brookings
New data shows long Covid is keeping as many as 4 million people out of work
Archive Link
This may sound unbelievably high, but it is not inconsistent with the experiences of comparable economies.
Katie Bach
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Brookings Metro
Date published: Aug. 24, 2022
Date archived: Feb. 12, 2023
Article on statistics
Journalist
Nature
Brain changes after COVID revealed by imaging
Archive Link
Imaging before and after infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus reveals substantial changes in the brain after infection.
Randy L. Gollub
Date published: Aug. 22, 2022
Date archived: July 9, 2023
Article on a study
Journalist
University of Auckland News and Opinion
If you've recently had Covid, look out for shingles
Archive Link
Opinion: Can having Covid trigger shingles? Yes, probably, according to Associate Professor Helen Petousis-Harris, and you might want to think about a shingles vaccine.
Date published: Aug. 16, 2022
Date archived: Sept. 25, 2023
Article on a study
Other / Professional
Published on author's Harvard faculty page
The Economic Cost of Long COVID: An Update
Archive Link
Relative to my earlier estimate with Lawrence Summers of the cost of long COVID of $2.6 trillion, the higher number here is higher: $3.7 trillion in total. The higher estimate is largely a result of the greater prevalence of long COVID than we had guessed at the time. There are about 10 times the number of people with long COVID as have died of COVID.
David M. Cutler
Professor of Applied Economics, Harvard University
Date published: July 16, 2022
Date archived: Oct. 21, 2023
Statistics & Models
Economist
Institute working paper (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute)
Long-Haulers and Labor Market Outcomes
Archive Link
But, when I discern long-haulers by whether long-haul COVID affected work, I find that long-haulers who reported long-haul COVID affected work are 10 percentage points less likely to be employed and, on average, work 50% fewer hours than individuals without prior COVID infection.
Dasom I. Ham
Date published: July 7, 2022
Date archived: Sept. 17, 2023
Statistics & Models
Governing body
Time
You Could Have Long COVID and Not Even Know It
Archive Link
Policymakers, public-health officials, and the media “have often portrayed covid as a short, flu-like disease, especially in the young,” Perego wrote in an email. As a result, people might not make the connection between a case of COVID-19 and health issues months later, especially if they had a mild initial illness or are fully vaccinated; other people may have been asymptomatically infected or got a false-negative test result, so they don’t know they had COVID-19 at all.
Jamie Ducharme
Date published: June 28, 2022
Date archived: March 29, 2024
Other / Mixed
Journalist
Brookings
Is ‘long Covid’ worsening the labor shortage?
Archive Link
Long Covid could account for upward of 15% of unfilled jobs
Katie Bach
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Brookings Metro
Date published: Jan. 11, 2022
Date archived: Aug. 12, 2023
Article on statistics
Other / Mixed
The Guardian
More than a million of us are suffering with long Covid – yet still it’s not taken seriously
Archive Link
Having been fit and active, I now find that on bad days I still struggle with everyday chores, and my usually quick-firing brain remains in slo-mo (“brain fog”), a far cry from the way it used to function when I was still working as a consultant in infectious diseases.
Joanna Herman
Date published: Dec. 22, 2021
Date archived: July 10, 2023
Other / Mixed
Other / Professional
Nature
How Vaccination Affects The Risk Of Long Covid
Archive Link
Vaccines reduce the risk of long COVID by lowering the chances of contracting COVID- 19 in the first place. But for those who do experience a breakthrough infection, studies suggest that vaccination might only halve the risk of long COVID — or have no effect on it at all.
Heidi Ledford, PhD
Senior Reporter
Date published: Nov. 25, 2021
Date archived: June 26, 2022
Article on a study
Other / Professional
Frontiers in Microbiology
Long COVID or Post-acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC): An Overview of Biological Factors That May Contribute to Persistent Symptoms
Archive Link
Potential contributors to PASC symptoms include consequences from acute SARS-CoV-2 injury to one or multiple organs, persistent reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2 in certain tissues, re-activation of neurotrophic pathogens such as herpesviruses under conditions of COVID-19 immune dysregulation, SARS-CoV-2 interactions with host microbiome/virome communities, clotting/coagulation issues, dysfunctional brainstem/vagus nerve signaling, ongoing activity of primed immune cells, and autoimmunity due to ...
Amy D. Proal, Michael B. VanElzakker PhD
Date published: July 23, 2021
Date archived: Oct. 16, 2023
Study
Group of professionals
UC Davis Health
Studies show long-haul COVID-19 afflicts 1 in 4 COVID-19 patients, regardless of severity
Archive Link
Another consistent finding is that it does not appear to matter whether non-hospitalized patients had more severe cases of COVID-19, mild cases or even cases that caused no symptoms at all.
Date published: March 30, 2021
Date archived: July 18, 2023
Article on a study
Other / Mixed
JAMA Network
Sequelae in Adults at 6 Months After COVID-19 Infection
Archive Link
In this cohort of individuals with COVID-19 who were followed up for as long as 9 months after illness, approximately 30% reported persistent symptoms. A unique aspect of our cohort is the high proportion of outpatients with mild disease.
Jennifer K. Logue, BS; Nicholas M. Franko, BS; Denise J. McCulloch, MD, MPH; Dylan McDonald, BA; Ariana Magedson, BS; Caitlin R. Wolf, BS; Helen Y. Chu, MD, MPH
Date published: Feb. 19, 2021
Date archived: Nov. 20, 2023
Study
Group of professionals