People are “dropping dead” with Covid “three years” after getting the virus

A Covid warning has been issued as people ‘drop dead’ three years after getting the virus. Patients hospitalized within 30 days of infection face a 29% higher risk of death three years later compared to those not infected, new research shows.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care warned that even people with mild coronavirus experience new health problems related to the infection three years later.

“We’re not sure why the effects of the virus persist for so long,” said lead author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Washington and a global leader in longitudinal research on COVID. “It may have to do with viral persistence, chronic inflammation, immune dysfunction, or all of the above.

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“We tend to think of infections as mostly short-term illnesses with health effects that manifest during the infection. Our data challenge this notion. I feel that COVID-19 continues to teach us – and this is an important new lesson – that a brief, seemingly harmless or benign encounter with the virus can still lead to health problems years later.”

“Patients with COVID-19 were more likely to develop numerous cardiovascular conditions compared to uninfected participants, which may have contributed to their higher risks of death,” said study author Professor Ian CK Wong of the University from Hong Kong, China.

“That a mild infection with SARS-CoV-2 can lead to new health problems three years later is a striking finding,” said Al-Aly, who is also director of the Center for Clinical Epidemiology at VA Health System St. Louis. , and head of research and development.

“The problem is even worse for people with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection. It is very worrying that the burden of disease among hospitalized people is astronomically higher. COVID-19 is a serious threat to people’s long-term health and well-being and should not be trivialized.”

“Even after three years, you may have forgotten about COVID-19, but Covid hasn’t forgotten about you,” Al-Aly said. “People might think they’re out of the woods because they’ve had the virus and they’ve had no health problems. But three years after infection, the virus could still wreak havoc and cause illness or disease in the gut, lungs or brain.”