Without a vaccine, more risks from Covid even 24 months after recovery: in fact, according to a work published in the British Medical Journal, more than one in 6 people among the unvaccinated report the effects of Covid on their health two years after the infection. Led by Tala Ballouz and Milo Puhan of the University of Zurich, the study finds that 17% did not return to normal health and 18% reported Covid-related symptoms after 24 months.
The study involved 1106 individuals who had Covid between August 2020 and January 2021 and 628 peers who did not get sick. It was an unvaccinated sample.
Overall, 55% of the participants said they were back to normal health within a month of being infected, and 18% reported recovering within one to three months. At six months, 23% of participants said they were still not healed, 19% at 12 months and 17% at 24 months.
Compared to people who did not have an infection, those who recovered from Covid had a higher risk of physical problems, such as impaired taste or smell (9.8%), malaise after exertion (9.4%) and lack of breath (7.8%), and mental health, such as reduced concentration (8.3%) and anxiety (4%) at the sixth month.
This is a large population-based study with regular assessments of a range of health outcomes: “Persistent health problems create significant challenges for affected individuals and pose a major burden on population health and health services.” , write the authors; more studies are needed “to establish effective interventions to reduce the burden of the post-Covid condition”, they conclude.
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