Long Covid is a condition some coronavirus patients suffer from after recovering from the illness itself. It can be described as a long period of illness where the sufferer is often left feeling exhausted and out of breath. Now latest research suggests, that 1 in 10 people under the age of 50 who get infected by the coronavirus will suffer from this debilitating condition and experience long-lasting conditions such as palpitations of the heart, brain fog, and muscle weakness.
According to this research, women are likely to suffer 50% more than men from such conditions after recovering from the coronavirus illness itself. Experts explain that these effects in these patients may last further than 12 weeks after recovering from the infection.
The researchers from King’s College London discovered this data after evaluating data taken from 4,000 volunteers who had been infected by the novel virus and had been using the symptom study app for coronavirus.
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Matt Hancock is the Health Secretary; he believes the numbers stand as a reminder of the long-lasting health effects of the disease, even though the disease kills less young people.
The health department also released a new video showing four people who survived the lethal illness. All of these people were between the ages of 23 and 48 and had begun battling ‘long Covid’ after the end of their battle with the coronavirus; they too experienced this condition without having any previous underlying diseases or conditions that might have contributed to this.
One of the patients was a nursery worker Jade from Oxfordshire. Aged only 23 the woman was usually hanging out and about with friends before she caught the lethal disease. Since that fated day, the young woman says she has been unable to go back to work and still experiences fevers, muscle aches, fluctuating heart rates, and nausea. She experienced the condition as long as 7 months after she recovered from the virus itself.
Another such sufferer was a 32-year-old marathon runner who worked as a business owner in London. Tom warns that being young and fit should not lead you to believe that coronavirus will be stopped because it will indeed have a long-lasting impact on the level of a person’s health.
After being infected in March, Tom has since suffered from a range of symptoms such as issues in breathing, chest pains, and a distortion in his senses.
Long Covid is a condition that continues to baffle doctors everywhere. While most people who contract coronavirus recover after suffering coughs, fevers, and losing the ability to taste or smell for most days afterward.
Thousands of people who survive however continue to complain that they still suffer symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue, heart arrhythmias, muscle, and irregular heartbeats, even after several months of recovering from the disease.
For long haulers, mental illnesses also seem to prevail more than usual. Mental health issues such as depression and anxiety appear to show up more often too.
The study analyzed data that came from the Covid Symptom Study app that acquired submitted data to understand how this post covid condition is affecting people in the UK.
Besides discovering that the condition was widely prevalent in the population, it also discovered that 2 in 10 people over the age of 70 also are at risk of being affected by the condition.
This study only further emphasizes the need for preventative measures to be taken seriously because a battle with covid-19 is far from over even if you happen to recover. It is better to be in the safe zone than be one of the long-haulers for the debilitating condition.
