People in both groups who had a history of one of 26 health conditions in the previous year were excluded from the study, an attempt by researchers to consider the medical problems that patients developed only after taking Covid.
The study, which included patients consulted at health centers using a registration system run by Cerner Corp., a large medical data company, said patients with Covid included people admitted to hospitals for emergency services. or diagnosed in an outpatient setting. The researchers did not indicate how many patients were in each group, one of the various limitations of the study’s findings.
Between 30 days and 365 days after their coronavirus diagnosis, 38 percent of patients experienced one or more new health problems, compared with 16 percent of non-Covid patients, according to the study. The younger age group, 18 to 64, was slightly less likely to have these problems: 35 percent developed long-term problems with Covid, compared with 15 percent of uninfected people. In the group aged 65 and over, 45% had new health conditions, compared with 19% of uninfected people.
Based on these percentages, the study authors estimated that nearly 21 percent of the younger group and nearly 27 percent of the older group developed health problems that could be attributed to a long Covid.
The study did not analyze the vaccination status of patients and did not report characteristics such as race, ethnicity, sex, or geographic location. Nor did he identify which variants of coronavirus were related to each case.
The CDC authors concluded that post-Covid conditions could “affect a patient’s ability to contribute to the workforce and could have economic consequences for survivors and their dependents.” They added that “care requirements could put pressure on health services” in “communities experiencing sharp increases in Covid-19 cases.”
Dr. Al-Aly said he agreed that people with Covid should be medically evaluated for possible new health problems.
“Now that we know that Covid-19 can have serious long-term consequences,” he added, “we need to develop additional tools to reduce the risk of long-term Covid-19.”