A new study has found that 45% of patients hospitalized and treated for COVID-19 were still experiencing related health issues when they were discharged. No vaccine is 100% effective in protecting people from infection. Most people recover from the acute phase of the disease. However, some people continue to experience a range of effects for months after recovery named ‘long COVID’ and experience damage to several organs. Multi-year studies are underway to further investigate the long-term effects of the disease. Long COVID can happen to anyone who has had COVID-19, even if the illness was mild, or they had no symptoms The syndrome can occur several weeks after an initial infection; symptoms include high fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, rash and extreme fatigue. Multi-organ effects can affect most, if not all, body systems including heart, lung, kidney, skin, and brain functions. In all, 84 different symptoms and clinical signs were reported, including loss of taste and smell, cognitive disorders such as loss of memory and difficulty concentrating, depression, anxiety, chest pain and fevers. Multi-organ effects can also include conditions that occur after COVID-19, like multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS) and autoimmune conditions. MIS is a condition where different body parts can become swollen. Autoimmune conditions happen when your immune system attacks healthy cells in your body by mistake, causing painful swelling in the affected parts of the body.
COVID-19 can make blood cells more likely to clump up and form clots. While large clots can cause heart attacks and strokes, much of the heart damage caused by COVID-19 is believed to stem from very small clots that block tiny blood vessels (capillaries) in the heart muscle.
Other parts of the body affected by blood clots include the lungs, legs, liver and kidneys. COVID-19 can also weaken blood vessels and cause them to leak, which contributes to potentially long-lasting problems with the liver and kidneys.
People who have severe symptoms of COVID-19 often have to be treated in a hospital’s intensive care unit, with mechanical assistance such as ventilators to breathe. Simply surviving this experience can make a person more likely to later develop post-traumatic stress syndrome, depression and anxiety.
Because it’s difficult to predict long-term outcomes from the new COVID-19 virus, scientists are looking at the long-term effects seen in related viruses, such as the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Effects of COVID-19 treatment and hospitalization can also include post-intensive care syndrome (PICS), which refers to health effects that remain after a critical illness. These effects can include severe weakness and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD involves long-term reactions to a very stressful event.
The study demonstrates that while much attention is directed toward COVID-19 case numbers and mortality rates, the impact of the disease on individuals extends well beyond these metrics.
Although media articles have reported that some people with long COVID say their symptoms improved after being vaccinated, studies are needed to determine the effects of vaccination on post-COVID conditions. According to doctors, an inactive or sedentary lifestyle could lead to negative thoughts, which is bad in Long Covid. Eating right (green vegetables, seasonal fruits and basic meals instead of having junk food, fried food etc.), exercising right, sleeping adequately must be followed.
