Lengthy COVID’s well being impacts for Australia revealed in new examine

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Lengthy COVID’s well being impacts for Australia revealed in new examine: Lengthy COVID contributed to a considerable lack of well being on account of the 2021-22 Omicron wave in Australia, in keeping with a brand new examine.

Revealed within the Worldwide Journal of Epidemiology, the examine, which is the primary to comprehensively estimate lengthy COVID morbidity utilizing particular person signs, examined circumstances from Australia’s 2021-2022 Omicron wave and separated lengthy COVID threat by age, vaccination standing, illness severity, and SARS-CoV-2 variant.

Lengthy COVID contributed to roughly three-quarters of the non-fatal well being loss from Omicron within the 4 months from December 2021 to April 2022. The best per-person lengthy COVID well being loss occurred for individuals hospitalised with a extreme acute COVID-19 an infection, and for individuals who have been unvaccinated.

Importantly, nevertheless, the lengthy COVID impression measured on this examine was solely 10 per cent of total COVID-19-related well being loss, inclusive of COVID-19 deaths.

College of Melbourne PhD candidate Samantha Howe, the lead creator of the examine, stated the findings mustn’t trigger undue concern, however do spotlight the necessity to contemplate lengthy COVID in ongoing pandemic planning and response. This contains continued vaccination uptake, significantly for these at a excessive threat of extreme an infection, and help for these affected.

Howe additionally famous: “Our examine targeted on the preliminary Omicron wave in Australia, throughout which there was a comparatively low threat of lengthy COVID. Ongoing monitoring of rising SARS-CoV-2 variants ought to contain analyzing potential modifications to lengthy COVID threat”.

The examine additionally highlighted that additional analysis is required, as it’s too early to know the total extent of COVID-19’s impression on persistent illness threat.

Ms Howe stated: “Non-acute well being loss from COVID-19 is probably larger than we measured, given the hyperlink between the virus and persistent illness incidence, corresponding to heart problems.”