Delta Surge 'Could Leave Hundreds of Thousands w LONG COVID': Unvaxed Younger Sufferers More At Risk

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- 'Unvaccinated younger sufferers more at risk of debilitating long-term symptoms, study finds.' The Guardian, July 13, 2021. - Ed.

The decision to lift England’s remaining Covid restrictions next Monday – even as cases of the Delta variant surge around the country – is expected to turbocharge the epidemic and push the nation into what one leading scientist called “uncharted territory” in terms of the numbers of people left suffering from long Covid.

Ministers have been told to expect at least one to two million coronavirus infections in the coming weeks. And while the mass rollout of vaccines – which started with elderly and vulnerable people – will dramatically reduce the proportion who are hospitalised and die, the wave may leave hundreds of thousands of younger people with long-term health problems, researchers have said.

Also known as post-Covid syndrome, long Covid describes more than a dozen symptoms that can endure for months after testing positive for the virus. Many patients experience debilitating fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pains, sleeping difficulties and problems with memory and concentration, often referred to as “brain fog”. Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology says evidence from multiple countries now suggests that a significant number of people who get Covid – whether they know they are infected or not – are at risk of developing longer-term illness.

“From every version of Covid we’ve ever seen on the planet, we’ve got a rule of thumb that any case of Covid, whether it’s asymptomatic, mild, severe, or hospitalised, incurs a 10 to 20% risk of developing long Covid, and we haven’t seen any exceptions to that,” he said. The Health secretary, Sajid Javid has warned that Covid infections may soon reach 100,000 per day, so Altmann says it is reasonable to expect 10,000 or 20,000 of those daily cases to go on to develop long Covid. But there are huge uncertainties around long Covid...

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/13/delta-surge-could-leave-hundreds-of-thousands-with-long-covid
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Related: Long Covid: Early Findings Bring Hope For Diagnostic Tests, BBC, 7/11/21
https://www.democraticunderground.com/114225884