Impact of the post-COVID-19 condition on health care after the first disease wave in Lombardy, 2022,

Abstract
Background
Lombardy was affected in the early months of 2020 by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with a very high morbidity and mortality. The post-COVID-19 condition and related public health burden are scarcely known.

Setting and design
Using the regional population administrative database including all the 48932 individuals who survived COVID-19 and became polymerase chain reaction (PCR) negative for SARS-CoV-2 by May 31 2020, incident mortality, re-hospitalizations, attendances to hospital emergency room and outpatient medical visits were evaluated over a mid-term period of 6 months, in 20521 individuals managed at home, 26016 hospitalized in medical wards and 1611 in intensive care units (ICU). These data were also evaluated in the corresponding period of 2019, when the region was not yet affected by the pandemic. Other indicators and proxies of the health-care burden related to the post-COVID condition were also evaluated.

Main results
In individuals previously admitted to ICU and medical wards, re-hospitalizations, attendances to hospital emergency rooms and out-patient medical visits were much more frequent in the 6-month period after SARS-CoV-2 negativization than in the same pre-pandemic period. Performances of spirometry increased more than 50-fold, chest CT scans 32-fold in ICU-admitted cases and 5.5-fold in non-ICU cases, electrocardiography 5.6-fold in ICU cases and two-fold in non-ICU cases. Use of drugs and biochemical tests increased in all cases.

Conclusions
These results provide a real-life picture of the post-COVID condition and of its effects on the increased consumption of health-care resources, considered proxies of comorbidities.

Open access, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13493