Two million people in UK living with long Covid, find studies
Two million people in the UK are thought to be living with long Covid, data has revealed, the highest figure since official surveys began.
While Covid can cause a period of acute illness, some people continue to experience symptoms, such as breathlessness, muscle aches and fatigue, for months or even years – a condition that has been labelled long Covid.
Studies have suggested Covid may have a lingering impact, including through damage to organs such as the heartand lungs, while research has suggested fewer than a third of patients who have ongoing Covid symptoms after being hospitalised with the disease feel fully recovered a year later.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveal that as of 1 May this year, 2 million people living in private households in the UK – or 3.1% of the population – reported they were still experiencing Covid symptoms more than four weeks after their first suspected coronavirus infection.
About two in five of those with long Covid, or 826,000 people, noted that infection was at least a year ago while one in five, or 376,000 people, said it was at least two years ago. In addition, 71% of those with long Covid said their symptoms had a negative impact on their day-to-day activities, with 20% saying their ability to undertake such activities had been “limited a lot”.
The latest figure is a 10% rise on the number of people with long Covid reported last month, and is almost twice as high as the figure reported as of 2 May last year when just over 1 million people self-reported having long Covid.
“As a proportion of the UK population, the prevalence of self-reported long Covid was greatest in people aged 35 to 69 years, females, people living in more deprived areas, those working in social care, teaching and education or health care, and those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability,” the ONS added.
Prof Danny Altmann, an immunologist and expert on long Covid at Imperial College London, described the latest figures as alarming.
“They put to rest any vestige of hope that long Covid would somehow be just a thing of the early waves, would diminish in times of vaccination or ‘milder’ variants, or would just trail off,” he said.
“We’ve now created a far larger cohort of the chronically unwell and disabled than we previously had, say, within the entire national burden of rheumatoid arthritis, its healthcare costs, associated loss to quality of life and to the workplace. This couldn’t be further from ‘living with Covid’. It does necessitate some policy discussions, nationally and internationally.”
The figures also drew criticism of the government from the all party parliamentary group on coronavirus.
“For nearly two years we have been warning the UK government about the scale and dangers of the long Covid crisis and their failure to properly address it will continue to devastate lives, damage our economy and cripple public services by decreasing productivity and increasing labour shortages,” said Layla Moran, the group’s chair.
“After reaching this grim milestone, the government cannot bury their heads in the sand any longer. They must urgently classify long Covid as an occupational illness, provide formal guidance to employers and increase funding for research into treatments.”
The figures come as further data from the ONS, released on Wednesday, reveal that Covid infection levels across the UK have continued to decline, with about 1 in 70 people in the community in England thought to have had Covid in the week ending 27 May – levels last seen before the Omicron variant took off.
However Dr David Strain of University of Exeter Medical School suggested the number of people left with long Covid will continue to grow.
“The increase in number of cases of long Covid is not at all surprising given the recent UK strategy of managing Covid based on the risk of hospitalisation and death alone. We have seen cases of long Covid due to the Omicron BA.2 variant be at least as high as previous variants, despite not causing the same hospitalisation rate,” he said.