A global analysis found that around 90 percent of long-COVID cases occur in individuals who were not hospitalized for COVID-19.
In reviewing the study, it appears that because mild cases make up the majority of long-COVID cases, having mild COVID might be what puts people at risk of long COVID.
However, the report’s corresponding author, Dr. Theo Vos from the University of Washington, who holds a doctorate in epidemiology and health economics, expressed in an email to The Epoch Times that the more likely explanation is that since most people experience mild symptoms with COVID-19, then if some of these patients were to become long-haulers, they would easily make up the majority of overall long-COVID cases.
Predicting the Development of Long COVID
The global study, like much previous research, supports the hypothesis that a severe case of COVID-19 would increase the risk of developing long COVID.Based on the data analyzed, the authors estimated that a greater proportion of patients who needed critical care or hospitalization for COVID-19 developed long-COVID symptoms than non-hospitalized patients.
However, since most people do not develop severe symptoms during a COVID-19 infection, this may be why physicians do not see clear patterns in the patients who progress to long COVID.
Further, the severity of the initial COVID-19 infection may not predict the severity of long COVID.
The chief of critical care and COVID-19 at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, Dr. Joseph Varon told The Epoch Times that he has seen long-COVID patients with varying severities of the initial COVID-19 infection.
One of his patients developed very dire symptoms of long COVID after experiencing a mild case of COVID-19.
“That’s the primary concern that I have, because a lot of people think that you [need to] have severe disease to have a more [severe case of] long COVID,” Varon said.
Kory said that there are different types of long-COVID patients. The first type comprises those who directly progress from acute to long COVID. These people never experience a period of recovery before relapsing into long COVID, and they make up a small minority of long-COVID patients. Most long-COVID patients experience a brief period of recovery for a few weeks or a few months before progressing to long COVID.
To prevent long COVID, doctors like Kory and Varon recommend early treatment drugs to inhibit the virus from replicating and causing further damage and symptoms.
Varon said that most of the long-COVID patients in his clinic did not get adequate treatment at the time of infection, observing that when he gave ivermectin, as per his protocol to patients, very few would later progress to long COVID.
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