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

Source for that chart is https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan...loyeetypes/bulletins/employmentintheuk/latest

Data for Jan to Mar 2020 (the first bar on the chart above), which is available by hovering over the original chart at the link above, shows 14,958 people as being long-term sick. The last bar on the chart shows 226,184 as being long-term sick.

 

For the most part surely it must just reflect the shear numbers of people infected within a relatively short amount of time?

 

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

1. Main points

• An estimated 1.8 million people living in private households in the UK (2.8% 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 3 April 2022 (see Figure 1).
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 382,000 (21%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 less than 12 weeks previously, 1.3 million people (73%) at least 12 weeks previously, 791,000 (44%) at least one year previously and 235,000 (13%) at least two years previously.
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 556,000 (31%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 before Alpha became the main variant; this figure was 249,000 (14%) in the Alpha period, 446,000 (25%) in the Delta period, and 438,000 (24%) in the Omicron period.
  
  
• Long COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 1.2 million people (67% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 346,000 (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 (33%), loss of sense of smell (26%), and difficulty concentrating (23%).
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• 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.
  

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...ngcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/6may2022

 

It's really frightening that over a million people have had it for a year or longer. Typically, self-limiting post viral syndromes resolve before the year mark.

That sounds like a familiar story too. People who can't afford to rest; who can't rest adequately because they have young children or feel they can't let down clients and colleagues; or who were already vulnerable.

 

The new ONS report on Long Covid after Delta versus BA.1 versus BA.2 first infections for double and triple vaccinated people is depressing. Basically, for triple-vaccinated people roughly 8% reported LC 4-8 weeks after infection, no matter which variant (BA.2 is about 9%, BA.1 and Delta 8%). For BA.1, the booster dose didn't seem to make much difference, but for Delta they show 16% for double vaccinated with LC versus 8% for triple vaccinated. Might be something weird going on with that 16% though.



But what really puzzles me is that the main survey results show 438,000 reporting LC from the Omicron period, which I believe would be Dec 20 to about Feb 20 (i.e. 4 weeks before the midpoint of the latest survey, which was Mar 20). During that time, according to the infection results from the survey, about 1/3 of the UK population was infected. So that's only 2% of those infected reporting LC, which is very different from the 8% for vaccinated first infections.

Maybe reinfections are less likely to cause LC (and about a 1/3 of those Omicron infections were reinfections), but that wouldn't explain the huge difference. The 8% is for those reporting symptoms from 4-8 weeks and the 2% is for roughly 4-13 weeks, so there could be some reduction because people are no longer reporting LC between 8 and 13 weeks, but that also wouldn't be enough to explain the difference.

Anyone understand this data better and can explain why these numbers seem so different?

 

Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK: 1 June 2022

1. Main points

• An estimated 2.0 million people living in private households in the UK (3.1% of the population) were experiencing self-reported long COVID (symptoms continuing for more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) infection that were not explained by something else) as of 1 May 2022 (see Figure 1).
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 442,000 (22%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 less than 12 weeks previously, 1.4 million people (72%) at least 12 weeks previously, 826,000 (42%) at least one year previously and 376,000 (19%) at least two years previously.
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 593,000 (30%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 before Alpha became the main variant; this figure was 239,000 (12%) in the Alpha period, 427,000 (21%) in the Delta period, and 619,000 (31%) in the Omicron period.
  
  
• Long COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 1.4 million people (71% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 398,000 (20%) reporting that their ability to go about 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 (55% of those with self-reported long COVID), followed by shortness of breath (32%), a cough (23%), and muscle ache (23%).
  
  
• 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 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.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...gcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/1june2022

Official Twitter thread

 

@Lucibee has a Twitter thread on this as well

 

As terrible as these figures are, as @Lucibee mentioned it's "TWO MILLION", this figure should grab a few headlines in the media.

 

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19...-office-for-national-statistics-says-12625155

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-cases-latest-coronavirus-figures-b2091640.html

https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-01...record-high-of-2-million-new-figures-estimate

https://inews.co.uk/news/long-covid-uk-record-number-suffering-symptoms-ons-figures-1662015

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/record-two-million-people-in-the-uk-have-long-covid-mw7z2nlp8

https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/01/long...uffering-long-term-from-coronavirus-16747965/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ople-in-uk-living-with-long-covid-say-studies

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-06-million-covid-uk.html

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ecord-2-million-people-in-uk-have-long-covid/

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/long-covid-how-many-uk-ons-latest-figures-pandemic-b1003599.html

 

This was on BBC radio 4 at about 4.30 as well, and they mentioned ME.

 

Science Media Centre (UK) : Expert reaction to latest ONS data on prevalence of ongoing symptoms following COVID-19 infection in the UK: 1 June 2022 |

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/...ing-covid-19-infection-in-the-uk-1-june-2022/

One expert opinion only and that is by David Strain.

 

The SMC published this. Probably through gritted teeth and much confusion. Ironic as the CEO writes about the opposite and calls us Nazis for... saying the same thing.

 

An interesting point from the latest report is that 37,000 more people reported Long Covid on May 1 versus April 3 who first had Covid in the pre-Alpha period. So that's 37,000 people who probably are now reporting LC after a recent Omicron re-infection (181,000 more reported LC after a first Omicron infection). So we'll need to wait for an ONS analysis to know specifics, but it certainly doesn't look like LC after re-infection is rare, especially since re-infections weren't that large of a proportion of total BA.1 infections according to ONS data.

 

Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK: 7 July 2022

1.Main points

• An estimated 2.0 million people living in private households in the UK (3.0% of the population) were experiencing self-reported long COVID (symptoms continuing for more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) infection that were not explained by something else) as of 4 June 2022 (see Figure 1).
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 405,000 (21%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 less than 12 weeks previously, 1.4 million people (74%) at least 12 weeks previously, 807,000 (41%) at least one year previously and 403,000 (21%) at least two years previously.
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 570,000 (29%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 before Alpha became the main variant; this figure was 237,000 (12%) in the Alpha period, 394,000 (20%) in the Delta period, and 642,000 (33%) in the Omicron period.
  
  
• Long COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 1.4 million people (72% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 409,000 (21%) 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 (56% of those with self-reported long COVID), followed by shortness of breath (31%), loss of smell (22%), and muscle ache (21%).
  
  
• 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, health care, or teaching and education, and those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability.
  
  
• 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.
  

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...gcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/7july2022

 

Self-reported long COVID after infection with the Omicron variant in the UK: 18 July 2022

1.Main points

• Of triple-vaccinated adults, 4.5%, 4.2% and 5.0% self-reported having long COVID 12 to 16 weeks after a first laboratory-confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection compatible with the Omicron BA.1, Omicron BA.2 or Delta variants, respectively, using data to 27 May 2022.
  
  
• There was no statistical evidence of differences in the odds of reporting long COVID between infections compatible with the Omicron BA.1, Omicron BA.2 and Delta variants among adults who were triple vaccinated when infected; this was after statistically adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics for all comparisons, and for time since last vaccine dose when comparing Omicron BA.1 and BA.2.
  
  
• Of double-vaccinated adults, 4.0% self-reported long COVID 12 to 16 weeks after a first infection compatible with the Omicron BA.1 variant, compared with 9.2% for those compatible with the Delta variant.
  
  
• The odds of reporting long COVID were 48.2% lower for first COVID-19 infections compatible with the Omicron BA.1 variant than those compatible with the Delta variant among adults who were double vaccinated when infected; this was after statistically adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...fterinfectionwiththeomicronvariant/18july2022

 

Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK: 4 August 2022

1.Main points

• An estimated 1.8 million people living in private households in the UK (2.8% of the population) were experiencing self-reported long COVID (symptoms continuing for more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) infection that were not explained by something else) as of 2 July 2022 (see Figure 1).
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 243,000 (14%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 less than 12 weeks previously, 1.4 million people (81%) at least 12 weeks previously, 761,000 (43%) at least one year previously, and 380,000 (21%) at least two years previously.
  
  
• Of people with self-reported long COVID, 530,000 (30%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 before Alpha became the main variant; this figure was 221,000 (12%) in the Alpha period, 356,000 (20%) in the Delta period, and 586,000 (33%) in the Omicron period.
  
  
• Long COVID symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 1.3 million people (72% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 369,000 (21%) 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 (54% of those with self-reported long COVID), followed by shortness of breath (31%), loss of smell (23%) and muscle ache (22%).
  
  
• 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, those aged 16 years or over who were not students or retired and who were not in or looking for paid work, and those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability.
  
  
• 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.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...oronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/4august2022