Evidence Mounts That About 7% of US Adults Have Had Long COVID https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2819957 New data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Household Component support prior findings that about 7% of US adults have had post–COVID-19 condition, also known as long COVID. The household survey of the US civilian noninstitutionalized population, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, found that an estimated 6.9% of adults—17.8 million—had ever had long COVID as of early 2023. This nationally representative survey included a sample of 17 418 adults aged 18 years or older, which corresponds to 259 million adults. A total of 8275 adults reported having had COVID-19, of which 1202 adults reported having had long COVID symptoms.
I find statistics like this slightly maddening - far more important than knowing how many people have experienced any symptoms 3 months after a covid infection is knowing how many people are debilitated 3 months after a covid infection. The problem is that you end up with a real conflict - you can't simultaneously define Long Covid as this awful multisystem disease and also say that 7% of Americans have had Long Covid. It also doesn't help patients whatsoever because overly broad definitions of Long Covid that aren't focused on those most affected = studies with far too ill-defined a sample of Long Covid patients, leading to research that is impossible to replicate. This is why I love the ONS Long Covid survey - they stratify the data by how affected people are, so currently there are about 2mn ppl with some form of Long Covid, of whom; 'Long COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 1.5 million people (74.7% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 381,000 (19.2% of those with self-reported long COVID) reporting that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been "limited a lot" ' - that extra detail tells you so much more than just leaving it at the 2mn figure.
They defined long COVID as symptoms lasting 3 months or longer after the initialSARS-CoV-2 infection that were not previously present.
