COSMOS – People who have survived a severe COVID-19 infection are more than twice as likely to die within a year, as compared to people who had a mild infection or didn’t catch it all.
A new study, published in Frontiers in Medicine, looked at the health records of more than 13,000 patients. [The report by Cosmos states “more than 13,000 patients who had COVID-19.” This is incorrect. The study looked a the electronic medical records of 13,638 patients regardless of whether they had Covid.]
One hundred and seventy eight had a severe infection, 246 had a mild or moderate infection, and the rest had tested negative.
The research team then tracked all the patients over the next 12 months. Lead author Arch Mainous, of the University of Florida says:
“We conducted a previous study that showed that patients with severe COVID-19 who recovered were at significantly greater risk of being hospitalised in the subsequent six months. This new study extended that to investigate mortality risk over the next 12 months.”
It found that patients who had severe COVID-19 had a significantly increased chance of death, especially in patients under 65 years of age.
Only 20% of those patients died from typical COVID-19 complications like respiratory failure or clotting.
The other causes of death were wide ranging, which suggests that a severe infection damages a person’s overall long-term health.
“Our recommendation at this point is to use preventive measures, such as vaccination, to prevent severe episodes of COVID-19,” Mainous says.
Link found between long COVID and chronic fatigue
A small US study has found that chronic fatigue syndrome may be more common in people living with long COVID, with almost half of the patients studied meeting the criteria for chronic fatigue.
READ MORE at Cosmos, or read the original study here.
