After long Covid, comes the long cold. The news comes from an English study by Queen Mary University, which analyzed the data of over 10,000 adults. You can read the results in the scientific journal The Lancet’s eClinical Medicine journal.
The concept that a respiratory virus or in any case a viral infection can cause symptoms for several weeks is not new. However, the diffusion of long Covid has prompted several research centers to delve deeper into the topic.
Long cold: what are the most common symptoms?
The English research data refers to the first two months of 2021, when the anti-Covid vaccines were starting to arrive. All participants had yet to receive vaccination against the disease caused by Sars-CoV-2.
Among the more than 10,000 people analyzed, 1,343 had contracted Covid, while 472 had another respiratory infection.
Some of them had persistent symptoms, even for months. The main symptoms are:
stomach problems, muscle and joint pain, tiredness, insomnia or waking up at night, diarrhea, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, dizziness, cough.
The severity or lightness of the viral infection has nothing to do with it
Post viral fatigue can affect people of any age. The severity of the disease has nothing to do with it. Even people who have had mild symptoms may continue to experience them for many weekssometimes even more serious than those experienced during the actual illness.
Those suffering from long colds on average last up to eleven weeks. Much less therefore than long Covid which on average persists for 44 weeks.
Long cold difficult to diagnose
These long respiratory infections are very difficult to diagnose and treat. There are no specific diagnostic tests and symptoms can relate to a myriad of clinical conditions.
The Queen Mary University study is important because it explains how respiratory infections take a long time to be completely eliminated from our body. The return to normality can be particularly slow and you need to take it easy with returning to daily life just a few days later.