65% Indians know someone with long Covid, 8% say virus-induced ailments permanent, survey finds

82% of the individuals surveyed said their contacts suffering from long Covid recovered fully within 6 months, 6% of them recovered within 6 months to a year.

Health workers wearing PPE kits attend Covid-19 patients | PTI

New Delhi: A new survey has found that 65 per cent people know at least one individual in their close network who has experienced long Covid with symptoms persisting weeks after recovering from the infection.

The survey also revealed that among those who suffered from long Covid, around eight per cent had Covid-induced ailments that became permanent. For most others, they took from one week to a year to resolve.

The survey, conducted by community social media platform LocalCircles, received more than 19,500 responses from citizens across 327 districts of India.

In the survey, two per cent of the respondents said they know “10 or more” individuals who had fatigue, joint pain, muscle pain, cough, shortness of breath, concentration or sleep problems that persisted weeks after recovering from Covid.

Six per cent said they know “6-9” individuals with such long Covid symptoms. Twenty-one per cent said they knew “3-5” people with such symptoms while 36 per cent said they knew “1 or 2” people.

Only 22 percent of the respondents said they knew no one with long Covid symptoms, while the remaining 13 per cent “couldn’t say”.

Gradual recovery

The survey also sought to understand the time it took for individuals to recover from Covid-induced ailments, asking participants about the average time it took for one or more long Covid symptoms to resolve.

As many as 21 per cent of the respondents said the symptoms lasted for “1-4 weeks”, while 12 per cent said “4-8 weeks”. About 19 per cent said “8-12 weeks”, 30 per cent said “12-24 weeks”, while six per cent said “24-48 weeks”.

As much as eight per cent of the respondents said the Covid-induced conditions have become permanent for their contacts and another six per cent said these conditions lasted 24-48 weeks.

While 82 per cent of these individuals surveyed said their contacts suffering from long Covid recovered fully within six months, for six per cent of them the recovery took six months to a year and for 8 per cent, the conditions have become permanent.

Several studies have shown that people can suffer from persisting symptoms after recovering from Covid. A study by researchers from Washington University School of Medicine showed that people who have had Covid are at increased risk of developing cardiovascular complications within the first month to a year after infection.

Such complications include disruptive heart rhythms, inflammation of the heart, blood clots, stroke, coronary artery disease, heart attack, heart failure or even death.

Another study reported that people who required ICU care during Covid treatment continued to have physical, psychological symptoms for over a year.

The survey covered conditions primarily induced from the Alpha, Beta and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2. The long-term impact of the Omicron variant will only be understood several months from now, the LocalCircles team said in a statement.