3 ms·

The Lancet just published a study yesterday on natural infection still causing symptoms one year later (“long Covid”) for 49% of unvaccinated people. I’ll stic

The Lancet just published a study yesterday on natural infection still causing symptoms one year later (“long Covid”) for 49% of unvaccinated people. I’ll stick to the vaccine.

jlmorton 5y ago
* among patients hospitalized with severe illness in one Wuhan hospital between Jan and Feb 2020, self-reporting at least one symptom from a long list, such as fatigue, joint pain, etc, vs 33% of a control group without Covid infection reporting the same. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01755-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  Yes thank you. GPs comment is completely inaccurate, and the referenced study does not make any claims about natural infection, only about patients hospitalized with severe illness. Multiple recent large scale studies have estimated an asymptomatic proportion lower bound of at least ~33% [1], and an upper bound of 65% (and even higher for young adults) [2]. This implies a significant proportion of people infected by SARS-COV-2 will not experience any noticeable symptoms. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that infections and cases are massively under-reported (by 10x to 100x) [3][4], so it's exceedingly likely that such estimates are underestimates of the true asymptomatic rate. [1] The Proportion of SARS-CoV-2 Infections That Are Asymptomatic https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6976 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6976 [2] Estimating the asymptomatic proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the general population: Analysis of nationwide serosurvey data in the Netherlands https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00768-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00768-y [3] Evaluating the massive underreporting and undertesting of COVID-19 cases in multiple global epicenters https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253104372030129X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253104372... [4] Undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/601/eabh3826 https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/601/eabh3826
ynfnehf 5y ago
49% of infected having symptoms a year later is ridiculous and obviously not true. Unless you define symptoms extremely broadly. I have not read the study you are referring to. Are you sure it is not specifically about hospitalized patients? Even then it sounds extreme. But you are right that vaccines are clearly better when given a choice.
- ymck 5y ago
  If you have a disease that causes organ damage, it's not that ridiculous. Look at the referenced studies. Multiple studies by different organizations performed 6-12 months out showing persistent fatigue, body aches, headaches, cognitive issues, loss of taste/smell, kidney function. Seems to be a real phenomenon.
sacado2 5y ago
The study you're probably talking about focuses on hospital survivors, not on the broad group of "naturally infected people".
nradov 5y ago
I assume you're referring to this study. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01755-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... They studied hospitalized patients, who by definition had severe symptoms. We would expect more severe symptoms to take longer to resolve. I don't know the exact numbers in China but in the US 95% of cases were never hospitalized. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... The study also counted anxiety and depression as "long COVID" symptoms which doesn't make much sense; they haven't proposed a biological mechanism of action for SARS-CoV-2 to directly cause such psychiatric symptoms. I would still encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can because the data shows it cuts the risk of death to virtually zero.
- jinder 5y ago
  Studies have already linked the inflammatory response in acute COVID to disruptions of the gut microbiome. This is a plausible route for long term, post-COVID neurological complications (anxiety, depression, neurosensory disturbances, insomnia etc).

The Lancet just published a study yesterday on natural infection still causing symptoms one year later (“long Covid”) for 49% of unvaccinated people. I’ll stick to the vaccine.

jlmorton 5y ago

* among patients hospitalized with severe illness in one Wuhan hospital between Jan and Feb 2020, self-reporting at least one symptom from a long list, such as fatigue, joint pain, etc, vs 33% of a control group without Covid infection reporting the same. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01755-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

criticaltinker 5y ago
Yes thank you. GPs comment is completely inaccurate, and the referenced study does not make any claims about natural infection, only about patients hospitalized with severe illness. Multiple recent large scale studies have estimated an asymptomatic proportion lower bound of at least ~33% [1], and an upper bound of 65% (and even higher for young adults) [2]. This implies a significant proportion of people infected by SARS-COV-2 will not experience any noticeable symptoms. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that infections and cases are massively under-reported (by 10x to 100x) [3][4], so it's exceedingly likely that such estimates are underestimates of the true asymptomatic rate. [1] The Proportion of SARS-CoV-2 Infections That Are Asymptomatic https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6976 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6976 [2] Estimating the asymptomatic proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the general population: Analysis of nationwide serosurvey data in the Netherlands https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00768-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00768-y [3] Evaluating the massive underreporting and undertesting of COVID-19 cases in multiple global epicenters https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253104372030129X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253104372... [4] Undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/601/eabh3826 https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/601/eabh3826

ynfnehf 5y ago

49% of infected having symptoms a year later is ridiculous and obviously not true. Unless you define symptoms extremely broadly. I have not read the study you are referring to. Are you sure it is not specifically about hospitalized patients? Even then it sounds extreme. But you are right that vaccines are clearly better when given a choice.

ymck 5y ago
If you have a disease that causes organ damage, it's not that ridiculous. Look at the referenced studies. Multiple studies by different organizations performed 6-12 months out showing persistent fatigue, body aches, headaches, cognitive issues, loss of taste/smell, kidney function. Seems to be a real phenomenon.

sacado2 5y ago

The study you're probably talking about focuses on hospital survivors, not on the broad group of "naturally infected people".

nradov 5y ago

I assume you're referring to this study. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01755-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... They studied hospitalized patients, who by definition had severe symptoms. We would expect more severe symptoms to take longer to resolve. I don't know the exact numbers in China but in the US 95% of cases were never hospitalized. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... The study also counted anxiety and depression as "long COVID" symptoms which doesn't make much sense; they haven't proposed a biological mechanism of action for SARS-CoV-2 to directly cause such psychiatric symptoms. I would still encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can because the data shows it cuts the risk of death to virtually zero.

jinder 5y ago
Studies have already linked the inflammatory response in acute COVID to disruptions of the gut microbiome. This is a plausible route for long term, post-COVID neurological complications (anxiety, depression, neurosensory disturbances, insomnia etc).