Long-Term Covid Suffering Worse Than Advanced Cancer, New Study Finds

A new study finds that the suffering caused by long-term Covid symptoms is more severe than that experienced by people with advanced cancer, reports the newspaper “Guardian“.

Fatigue is one of the symptoms most affecting the daily lives of long-term Covid patients, according to a study led by researchers at University College London and the University of Exeter.

The researchers discovered that many long-term Covid patients had similar or worse stress scores than people with anemia related to cancer or severe kidney disease. The impact of long-term Covid on patients’ daily activities was also worse than that caused by stroke.

The researchers studied the case of more than 3,750 patients who reported that symptoms persisted for at least 12 weeks after exposure to the emerging coronavirus, which causes Covid-19 disease.

Patients were asked to complete questionnaires on an app about how long Covid was affecting them, including its impact on their daily activities, levels of fatigue, depression, anxiety, shortness of breath, brain fog, and their quality of life.

And 51 percent of the respondents said that they were unable to work for at least one day in the previous month, even though more than 90 percent of the respondents are of working age (18-65).

And 20 percent reported that they are unable to work at all, knowing that 71 percent of the participating patients were female.

Previous research suggests that up to 17 percent of people exposed to the coronavirus develop long-term COVID-19.

“Our results find that long-term COVID-19 can have a devastating impact on patients’ lives,” said Henry Goodfellow, a researcher at University College London’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health who co-led the study.

“Stress has a greater impact on everything from social activities to work, housework and maintaining close relationships,” he added.