More than 1 in 5 adult Covid survivors in the U.S. may develop long Covid, a C.D.C. study suggests.

Individuals in each teams who had a historical past of one of many 26 well being circumstances within the earlier 12 months have been excluded from the research — an try by the researchers to contemplate medical points that sufferers developed solely after that they had Covid.

The research, which concerned sufferers seen at well being amenities that use a file system managed by Cerner Corp., a big medical information firm, stated the Covid sufferers included individuals admitted to hospitals, seen in emergency departments or identified in an outpatient setting. The researchers didn’t point out what number of sufferers have been in every group, one in all a number of limitations of the research’s findings.

Between 30 days and twelve months after their coronavirus prognosis, 38 p.c of the sufferers skilled a number of new well being issues, in comparison with 16 p.c of the non-Covid sufferers, the research stated. The youthful age group, 18-to-64, was considerably much less prone to have these issues — 35 p.c developed lengthy Covid points, in contrast with 15 p.c of uninfected individuals. Within the 65-and-older group, 45 p.c had new well being circumstances, in contrast with 19 p.c of uninfected individuals.

Primarily based on these percentages, the research authors calculated that almost 21 p.c of the youthful group and almost 27 p.c of the older group developed well being issues that might be attributed to lengthy Covid.

The research didn’t take a look at the vaccination standing of the sufferers and didn’t report traits like race, ethnicity, intercourse or geographic location. It additionally didn’t establish which coronavirus variants have been linked to every case.

The C.D.C. authors concluded that post-Covid circumstances may “have an effect on a affected person’s capacity to contribute to the work power and may need financial penalties for survivors and their dependents.” They added that “care necessities may place a pressure on well being companies” in “communities that have heavy Covid-19 case surges.”

Dr. Al-Aly stated he agreed that individuals who had Covid ought to be medically evaluated for potential new well being issues.

“Now that we’re in possession of information that Covid-19 can result in critical long-term penalties,” he added, “we have to develop further instruments to scale back the chance of lengthy Covid.”