Long COVID – what is it and how it affects people

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Having COVID is bad enough. Now imagine experiencing symptoms for 12+ weeks after catching the virus? That’s what they’re calling “Long COVID”. It’s the phenomenon of having COVID symptoms like continued to be fatigue (70% of those with self-reported long COVID), followed by difficulty concentrating (48%), shortness of breath (46%) and muscle ache (45%). Symptoms adversely affect the day-to-day activities of 1.6 million people, or 75% of those with self-reported long COVID as of November 2022. Symptoms can last weeks or even years.

Self-reported long COVID is more common in:

· those aged 35 to 69 years

· females

· people living in more deprived areas

· those working in social care

· those aged 16 years and over who were not working and not looking for work

· those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability?

On the other hand, the number of COVID infections continues to decrease in the UK, although new variants have been surfacing. Since the end of June 2022, most COVID-19 infections in the UK have been the Omicron variant BA.5 or it’s sub-lineages. One of these BA.5 sub-lineages, BQ.1, has been increasing considerably in recent weeks. In the week ending 6 November 2022, BA.5 (excluding BQ.1) made up 45.8% of all sequenced infections (the sample of positive cases that undergoes additional analysis to identify the variant). The Omicron BQ.1 variant accounted for 37.2% of all sequenced infections, an increase from 29.8% in the previous week. We have also observed a small recent increase in the percentage of infections with BA.2 sub-lineages, accounting for 13.0% of sequenced infections in the week ending 6 November 2022.

Healthcare officials are recommending the population to keep taking the vaccine every year to decrease the chances of long covid and slow the spread even more.