And So We Wait

Of course, as soon as I wrapped up the previous post, I came upon more interesting stuff about the medical conditions that persist after recovering from COVID-19.

I'm focusing on this article because it describes, first of all, a really good reason not to get it, and secondly, it is a little scary and sound like a big deal.  And, thirdly, it makes it clear that, as I noted in that previous post, we need more time to really know for sure.

It's not a surprise that people who recover from COVID have been shown to suffer from blood clots and strokes at a greater rate than those who never had COVID.  It is the great prevalence of those conditions that is new and disturbing.  In an op-ed piece for CNN, Dr. Kent Sepkowitz, a physician and infection disease expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, notes 

The results are clear and very significant: Compared with similar people who had not been infected with SARS-CoV-2, those who recovered from infection had many more blood clots, heart problems and strokes. The extent of the differences across the 20 different cardiovascular conditions is among the greatest of any clinical study I have read. It is jaw-dropping.*

So there's that.  Whether this is included in the concept "long COVID," or in the wider category the CDC calls "Post COVID Conditions," it is, apparently, real, and frightening.  

But is is permanent?  How long will it persist? What else don't we know about the parameters of these findings?

The study has important limitations. It involves people infected in 2020 who are at least a year post-infection; these people likely had the initial "wild" strain of SARS-CoV-2 or perhaps the Alpha variant, which dominated in late 2020. Not enough time has passed to know if similar long-term dysfunctions of the blood vessels and heart also will occur among survivors of Delta or Omicron variant infections. And the study cannot predict the health impact of Covid-19 two and three and 10 years after recovery.

"Not enough time has passed."  And so we wait. 

 * - A more detailed look at the study results can be found here and here.