Long Covid sufferers ‘may just be under the weather’

MORE than half of people suffering from long Covid may not have the condition and just be suffering from normal bouts of ill health, a study suggests.

In an analysis of nearly 27,000 people who tested positive for Covid in the UK Coronavirus Infection Survey researchers found that five per cent reported at least one symptom 12 to 16 weeks after their infection.

However, the study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also found that 3.4 per cent of people who had not been diagnosed with coronavirus also reported the same long Covid symptoms.

People who complain of long Covid experience symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle ache, weakness or tiredness, nausea or vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, a sore throat, cough, shortness of breath, loss of taste, and loss of smell.

But the ONS said that such conditions were experienced regularly within the general population.

Kevin Mcconway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at The Open University, said: “That’s not all that much less than the five per cent for the infected people, which does show that having one or more of these symptoms isn’t uncommon regardless of Covid-19.”

A second analysis found that just three per cent of people reported continuous symptoms for at least 12 weeks after an infection, compared with 0.5 per cent of the control population.

However, in a third analysis, when the group was asked to self-identify as suffering from long Covid, 11.7 per cent said they believed they had the condition.

Previous studies have suggested up to a fifth of people catching Covid will suffer from long-term effects.