Long Covid ‘much more likely’ in middle-aged women: report

The largest US study of the prevalence of long Covid found it is more prevalent among women and the white population.

A healthcare worker comforts a patient in the Covid-19 ward at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Picture: AFP.

White middle aged women are “much” more likely to report suffering from ‘long Covid’ according to a major new US study of almost 500,000 Americans, as scientists struggle to clearly define the new condition.

The largest study to date of the prevalence of long Covid in the US found 14 per cent of Americans were suffering or had suffered from the debilitating ailment, and the incidence varied significantly across the US, from 11 per cent in high income Hawaii to 18 per cent in relatively poor West Virginia.

“Long Covid is much higher among women than it is among men, it varies by ethnicity … being highest among whites compared with Blacks and Asians,” the study, which pored over responses to the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey between June and December last year, concluded.

“The age structure of long Covid tracks that of the unhappiness literature peaking in midlife between the ages of 45 and 49,” the authors, two British economists David Blanchflower – a former Bank of England board member – and Alex Bryson, concluded.

The World Health Organisation defines long Covid, which has attracted controversy since it emerged soon after the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, as the development or continuation of new Covid-19 symptoms, which last at least two months, three months after the initial infection.

“Long Covid is also strongly associated with physical mobility problems, and with problems dressing and bathing; it is also associated with mental problems as indicated by recall and understanding difficulties,” the study found.

More than 200 symptoms of the condition have been identified so far, including ‘brain fog’, tiredness, difficulty in thinking or concentrating, muscle or joint pain, menstrual changes, dizziness and inability to exercise.

“Although yet to be clearly identified as a clinical condition, there is immense concern at the health and wellbeing consequences of long Covid,” the analysis noted, pointing out – puzzlingly – “those who report having short Covid report higher wellbeing than those who report never having had Covid”.

Scientists have debated the prevalence and seriousness of long Covid, the incidence of which has varied significantly according to a deluge of new studies into the subject.

Almost 36 per cent of students and staff at George Washington University, in the US capital, developed long Covid, according to a recent study by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention on a sample of 4,800 where respondents had a median age of 23.

More than 1.1 million Americans, around 75 per cent of whom aged over 65, have died from or with short Covid in almost three years.

A UK study found that 2.1 million people, or 3.3 per cent of the UK population, said they were or had been living with long Covid.

Five to 10 per cent of Covid survivors in Australia developed long Covid, and vaccination reduced the risk by up to 47 per cent, according to an Australian study published in December.

Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in December said Long Covid was “real” but “massively exaggerated”.

“It’s often normal to experience mild fatigue or weakness for weeks after being sick and inactive and not eating well. Calling these cases long Covid is the medicalisation of ordinary life,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Also, the two authors in the study entitled Long Covid in the United States, noted that poorer parts of the US, where people tended to express lower reported wellbeing overall, reported higher rates of Long Covid.

“The incidence of long Covid is highest in Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia – which are also among the states with the lowest subjective wellbeing rankings in the United States”.