By: Dr. Marisa Donnelly, Healthbeat New York | Thecity.nyc 

This article was originally published by Healthbeat, a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company and KFF Health News. Sign up for Your Local Epidemiologist New York and get Dr. Marisa Donnelly’s community public health forecast in your inbox a day early.

Covid-19 is here to stay, and with it come persistent and potentially life-altering symptoms from Covid-19 infections, also known as Long Covid. This is where most concerns lie for the majority of us when encountering Covid-19.

A new report found just how much it has impacted New York City — 80% of New York respondents suffered symptoms for more than one month after infection. How does this figure hold up? And what can we do about it?

Let’s dig in.

What is Long Covid, exactly?

Early in the pandemic, clinicians quickly found that patients with severe infections had lasting and sometimes debilitating symptoms, from brain fog to headaches to being bedridden. Long Covid has since been documented after mild or moderate disease, too. The long-term effects cause a wide range of physical, mental, emotional, and psychological symptoms.

We still don’t fully know the physiological pathways, but hypotheses include continued viral replication, overactive immune response, micro-blood clots, inflammation of blood vessels, or organ damage from initial infection. Tightly controlled studies put the prevalence of Long Covid around 3%-6%.

In 2022, long-term Covid symptoms were common among New Yorkers

Last month, the New York City Department of Health published survey results from 2022 to understand the burden of Long Covid on New Yorkers.

Before we jump into the data, keep this in mind: Measuring Long Covid is really hard. While New York tracks Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths, Long Covid cases aren’t reportable, and there’s no diagnostic test. Many of the symptoms are common, like fatigue and headache. These results are also coming from a subset of people who chose to respond to a voluntary survey about enduring symptoms, so the findings may not represent the experience of New York City residents overall.

The Covid-19 Experiences Survey asked 2,081 New York City residents about longer-term symptoms following Covid-19 infection. These are the results:

• 80% reported at least one symptom lasting one month or longer.
• Half of respondents reported at least one moderate or severe symptom lasting at least one month.
• Fatigue and decreased exercise tolerance were the most common long-lasting symptoms — about half of adults reported these.
• Black and Latino communities, women, transgender people, and those living in low-income neighborhoods were more likely to have symptoms lasting more than one month. These communities were hit hardest during the pandemic, and inequities have persisted for Long Covid.

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