A study that followed up a national 2020 COVID-19 study revealed that 15% to 25% of adults who have contracted COVID-19 in the United States could be suffering from “long COVID”. 

Three years ago, the City College of New York launched a national study involving 7,000 Americans and the risk factors of COVID-19. Following their findings, the college launched a followup study in July 2022 to look at long-term COVID effects in those who got infected.  

“This is as big of a public health problem as many other things that we spend the time trying to track and understand,” said Denis Nash, a professor of epidemiology at the City University of New York. “We don’t know how long or how many people who have this condition will suffer from it.” 

Nash says that the prevalence of long COVID is another reason for people to receive vaccines.  

Long COVID is understood to be a persistent set of symptoms including fatigue, shortness of breath, headaches, difficulty concentrating, brain fog, increased heart rate, and increased inflammation throughout the body.  

Nash says that long COVID also has a chance to affect the upwards trend of life expectancy and immature rates of mortality.  

“All we know is that there have been a lot of access deaths that accompany the COVID deaths,” said Nash. “There’s still so much to be learned about this.” 

Studies also found that you may be at higher risk for developing long COVID if you’re female, have comorbidities such as diabetes, or have had repeat infections of COVID-19.