Preprint Prevalence of Long COVID-associated symptoms in adults with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection in Germany: Results of the population-based study...,2023

Prevalence of Long COVID-associated symptoms in adults with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection in Germany: Results of the population-based study: Corona Monitoring Nationwide 2021/22 (RKI-SOEP-2)

Abstract

Background
Controlled population-based studies on long-term health sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 can help to identify clinical signs specific to Long COVID and to evaluate this emerging public health challenge.

Aim
To examine prevalence differences of Long COVID-associated symptoms among adults with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection in Germany.

Methods
This population-based, retrospective study (11/2021-2/2022) included 7,683 working aged adults (18-65 years), a subset of the Corona Monitoring Nationwide study in Germany. Prior SARS-CoV-2 infection was defined based on self-reported PCR-confirmed infections and IgG-antibody dried blood spot testing. Participants answered a questionnaire including 19 common symptoms of Long COVID experienced in the six months preceding the survey. We estimated population-weighted prevalence of (1) individual symptoms, and (2) ≥1 symptom, with and without impact on work ability, by infection status within strata of sex, age group, income and comorbidity. We calculated model-adjusted prevalence differences and the probability that symptoms among infected are attributable to infection.

Results
12 of 19 symptoms showed a significantly higher prevalence in infected than non-infected participants, including fatigue (27.5% versus 18.3%; p<0.001), concentration problems (22.2% vs. 13.1%; p<0.001), shortness of breath (15.6% vs. 7.5%; p<0.001), and smell and taste disorder (10% vs. 1.2%; p<0.001). ≥1 symptom with impact on work ability was more prevalent following infection (16.0% vs. 12.2%; p=0.06) with a model-adjusted prevalence difference of 3.8% (95%-CI -0.5-8.0).

Conclusion
We observed a rather small excess prevalence attributable to SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, the absolute number of persons places great demands on the health care system and may affect economic productivity.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10....1?rss=1&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

Related work by the RKI: https://www.s4me.info/threads/long-...ction-2023-heidemann-et-al.34900/#post-490426

 

The denominator is the whole population. Even 1% of the whole population is a huge amount of people. For the whole civilization, it's almost 100M people. 100M is a whole freaking lot of sick people. No one could pretend they didn't understand this when they encouraged the whole population to be infected again and again.

But of course that's just how it usually goes. "It's a small %". There is never any thought that those are real people in real life. Just numbers, and not even lives, just money, cost, expenses, how much they are bothered at their workplace, occupied beds and waiting lists. No one actually seems able to think of it in terms of people.

This idea that we should only care about things once they reach intolerable numbers is plain foolish. You keep hearing this every time COVID is minimized: it's not going to overwhelm healthcare services, or it's not as bad as the worst of it, or people aren't dying in the streets. As if the world outside their workplace doesn't factor in. As if even 1% of the population out of function is not a huge thing.

"Rather small excess". Pffft.