September 26, 2023 – An estimated 18 million adults within the U.S. have long-term COVID, and half of them are still fighting the disease, latest national survey data shows.
CDC results National Health Interview Survey in 2022 found that 6.9% of adults self-reported having experienced COVID symptoms for at the least three months after testing positive or being diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection by a health care provider.
The estimate is far lower than previous CDC survey data consistently shows about 14% to fifteen% of U.S. adults have long-term COVID.
The CDC also recently reported that 1.3% of them US children had been unwell with COVID for a very long time and 0.5% of youngsters had symptoms lasting at the least 3 months on the time of the survey in 2022.
The agency lists 19 possible long-COVID patients Symptomsincluding fatigue, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, brain fog, and changes within the sense of smell or taste, and symptoms that worsen with physical or mental exertion.
The 2022 survey results were analyzed by demographic aspects equivalent to income, gender, age and race or ethnicity to find out whether groups of individuals are affected in a different way by long COVID.
Wealthy people were least more likely to report having long COVID, while people whose family income was well below the federal poverty level were more than likely to have long COVID. Women were more likely than men to have ever had long-term COVID or to currently have the disease. People aged 35 to 49 were more than likely to report affected by this disease.
When researchers examined how long people were affected by COVID based on their race or ethnicity, the information showed:
- 8.3% of Hispanics reported ever having had long-term COVID and three.4% were currently affected.
- 7.1% of whites reported ever having had long-term COVID and three.7% were currently affected.
- 5.4% of Black people reported ever having long-term COVID and a couple of.4% were currently affected.
- 2.6% of Asians reported ever having long-term COVID, and 1.1% were currently affected.
Last summer, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the launch of a federally funded program clinical trials to look at long COVID symptoms, treatments and prevention.