Long COVID symptoms create a greater burden of disability than heart disease or cancer, new study shows – CTV

Aug. 21, 2023

People who survived COVID-19 early in the pandemic, before there were vaccines, continued to be at higher risk for a slew of health problems for up to two years after they got over their initial infections, a new study finds, and that was especially true if they were hospitalized.

These health problems include heart problems, blood clots, diabetes, neurologic complications, fatigue and difficulties with mental health and have come to be known collectively as long COVID.

When researchers tallied the risks for more than 80 different complications that are associated with long COVID, they translated the collective toll into a metric called a disability adjusted life year, or DALY. Each DALY represents one year of healthy life lost to illness. They found that long COVID generated more than 80 disability-adjusted life years, or DALYs, for every 1,000 people who weren’t hospitalized for their initial infection.

Read more: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/long-covid-symptoms-create-a-greater-burden-of-disability-than-heart-disease-or-cancer-new-study-shows-1.6527866