Four new long-COVID studies reveal that 10% of French patients infected early in the pandemic still had symptoms 1 year later, SARS-CoV-2 can profoundly damage the brain for months, and very stressful events exacerbate persistent symptoms.

For some, a long road to recovery French researchers published a new study in JAMA Network Open on 1-year rates of long COVID among 53,047 adults in three population-based groups who took a nationwide survey from Apr 1 to Jun 30, 2020. The researchers obtained blood samples for serologic confirmation of infection from May 1 to Nov 30, 2020, and fielded an online follow-up questionnaire from Jun 1 to Sep 30, 2021. Average participant age was 50.9 years, and 63.7% were women.

In total, 3,972 people had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, with 2,647 (66.6%) of them reporting at least one symptom during their infections. Of the 2,647 participants, 32.5% said they had at least one COVID-19 symptom for 2 months or longer.

The estimated proportion of participants who had at least one lingering symptom was 18.4% at 6 months, 10.1% at 12 months, and 7.8% after 18 months. Among participants who had symptomatic infections, an estimated 33.6% had more than five symptoms 1 week after infection, falling to 2.8% at 2 months.

An estimated 97.5% of participants with weakness, 94.2% of those with impaired attention or concentration, and 77.5% of those with memory loss reported symptom resolution at 1 year.

The most common long-COVID symptoms were shortness of breath (26.5%), joint pain (26.9%), loss of smell or taste (27.0%), weakness (20.6%), impaired attention or concentration (22.3%), memory loss (40.0%), and sleep disorders (36.6%)

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2798224