Office of National Statistics: Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK: Updates

not really. Most researchers believe that long co-is likely to be many different things. This still isn't the research to demonstrate that ANY of it is definitely ME/CFS, though it certainly looks that way (decodeme will be looking at the genetics of people who meet ME criteria after Covid infection). The key number is the 233,000 people who say they are "limited a lot" by Long Covid — only those are likely to meet ME/CFS criteria and only a subset of those are likely to have ME/CFS.

All the same, we could be looking at a very big increase in ME.

 

Sure, but these patients could receive a FND, psychological disorder, or a somatization diagnosis.

 

Many people have described their disease in the same terms as the patients from the Royal Free Epidemic. They feel better so they go back to work, manage for a day or so then collapse. Variation of symptoms like this is typical of ME and is so unusual that it does not appear to be trying to fit symptoms into a recognized fatigue post viral fatigue state.

In their submissions to NICE we have seen how the medical profession perceives ME and it is possible that these patients will not get a diagnosis of what the doctors believe CFS/ME to be.

edit for clarity

 

Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK : 2 December 2021

• An estimated 1.2 million people living in private households in the UK (1.9% of the population) were experiencing self-reported long COVID (symptoms persisting for more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) infection that were not explained by something else) as of 31 October 2021; this is consistent with the 1.2 million (1.9%) seen as of 2 October 2021.
  
  
• The estimates presented in this analysis relate to self-reported long COVID, as experienced by study participants who responded to a representative survey, rather than clinically diagnosed ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 syndrome in the full population.
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 232,000 (19%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 less than 12 weeks previously; 862,000 people (71%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least 12 weeks previously, and 439,000 (36%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least one year previously.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...onaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/2december2021

 

My estimate: 80k cases of LC in the UK that might be ME/CFS.
https://twitter.com/user/status/1466707135794925574


Comments on my assumptions are welcome.

 

Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK : 6 January 2022

• An estimated 1.3 million people living in private households in the UK (2.0% of the population) were experiencing self-reported long COVID (symptoms persisting for more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) infection that were not explained by something else) as of 6 December 2021.
  
  
• The estimates presented in this analysis relate to self-reported long COVID, as experienced by study participants who responded to a representative survey, rather than clinically diagnosed ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 syndrome in the full population.
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 270,000 (21%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 less than 12 weeks previously; 892,000 people (70%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least 12 weeks previously, and 506,000 (40%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least one year previously.
  
  
• The proportion of people with self-reported long COVID who reported that it reduced their ability to carry out daily activities remained stable compared with previous months; symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 809,000 people (64% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 247,000 (20%) reporting that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been “limited a lot”.
  
  
• Fatigue continued to be the most common symptom reported as part of individuals' experience of long COVID (51% of those with self-reported long COVID), followed by loss of smell (37%), shortness of breath (36%), and difficulty concentrating (28%).
  
  
• As a proportion of the UK population, 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 health care, social care, or teaching and education (which saw the biggest month-on-month increase out of all employment sectors), and those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability.
  

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...ronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/6january2022

 

Moved from the general long covid thread

The Office for National Statistics has published the report: Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK: 6 January 2021. They estimate 1,3 million people in the UK are have been experiencing self-reported long COVID as of December 2021.

They've also published a Twitter thread with a summary.

 

Medscape has an article about the report including a comment from Dr. David Strain.

Medscape: Healthcare Workers 'Most Likely to Report Long COVID Symptoms'

Quote:
Commenting on the findings for the Science Media Centre, Dr David Strain, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter, said that "the treatments that we have to reduce hospitalisation and death are not cancelling the need for further measures to stop the spread of COVID, as we are seeing a rising number of people who have a condition that currently we have no proven treatment for."

He added: "As we continue to see case numbers of Omicron rise, we must be wary that our reliance purely on hospitalisations and death as a measure of the risk from COVID could grossly underestimate the public health impact of our current COVID strategy."

 

UK survey suggests 1.3 million have long Covid

"About 1.3 million people in the UK have "long Covid", symptoms lasting more than four weeks after an initial infection, an Office for National Statistics survey suggests.

Of those, 892,000 (70%) first caught the virus at least 12 weeks ago and 506,000 (40%) at least a year ago."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59895598

 

Of the 892k who first caught covid at least 12 weeks ago, 178k report that the symptoms limit their activities of daily life a lot (for comparison with ME/CFS).

 

Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK : 3 March 2022

1.Main points

• 
  An estimated 1.5 million people living in private households in the UK (2.4% of the population) were experiencing self-reported long COVID (symptoms persisting for more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) infection that were not explained by something else) as of 31 January 2022 (see Figure 1).
  
  
• The estimates presented in this analysis relate to self-reported long COVID, as experienced by study participants who responded to a representative survey, rather than clinically diagnosed ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 syndrome in the full population.
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 344,000 (22%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 less than 12 weeks previously, 1.1 million (71%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least 12 weeks previously, and 685,000 (45%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least one year previously.
  
  
• Long-COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 989,000 people (65% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 281,000 (18%) reporting that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been "limited a lot".
  
  
• Fatigue continued to be the most common symptom reported as part of individuals' experience of long COVID (51% of those with self-reported long COVID), followed by shortness of breath (35%), loss of smell (34%), and loss of taste and difficulty concentrating (both 25%).
  
  
• As a proportion of the UK population, prevalence of self-reported long COVID was greatest in people aged 35 to 49 years, females, people living in more deprived areas, those working in teaching and education, social care or health care (likely reflecting increased exposure to COVID-19 infection in these sectors), and those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...coronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/3march2022

 

From the above update (3rd March) showing the continuing rise in long COVID

 

Main points

• An estimated 1.7 million people living in private households in the UK (2.7% of the population) were experiencing self-reported long COVID (symptoms persisting for more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) infection that were not explained by something else) as of 5 March 2022 (see Figure 1).
  
  
• The estimates presented in this analysis relate to self-reported long COVID, as experienced by study participants who responded to a representative survey, rather than clinically diagnosed ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 syndrome in the full population.
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 422,000 (24%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 less than 12 weeks previously, 1.2 million people (69%) at least 12 weeks previously, 784,000 (45%) at least one year previously and 74,000 (4%) at least two years previously.
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 561,000 (33%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 before Alpha became the main variant; this figure was 253,000 (15%) in the Alpha period, 470,000 (27%) in the Delta period, and 334,000 (19%) in the Omicron period.
  
  
• Long COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 1.1 million people (67% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 322,000 (19%) reporting that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been "limited a lot".
  
  
• Fatigue continued to be the most common symptom reported as part of individuals' experience of long COVID (51% of those with self-reported long COVID), followed by shortness of breath (34%), loss of smell (28%), and muscle ache (24%).
  
  
• As a proportion of the UK population, prevalence of self-reported long COVID was greatest in people aged 35 to 49 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.
  

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...coronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/7april2022

 

@Lucibee has shared a bar chart showing "#LongCovid symptom duration (ONS) Estimated number of people living with LC symptoms (1000s)" on Twitter based on the numbers reported above.

Code:

https://twitter.com/_Lucibee/status/1512006342030110721

https://twitter.com/user/status/1512006342030110721

 

The Independent mentioning the new long COVID rate

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/long-covid-symptoms-latest-rise-ons-b2052780.html