Prolonged Effects of COVID-19: Here’s What Doctors Know

With more than 2.6 million cases in the US, since the COVID-19 crisis started in late December 2019, there are currently many people, more than one million nationwide, who have recovered from the deadly infectious disease.

At the same time, reports have come out about people continuing to experience lingering effects from the illness. In The Conversation, University of Virginia professor a physician specializing in infectious diseases of adults, William Petri said, presented a summary of his research on "what is known today about recovering from COVID-19" and the areas where there are significant gaps in their knowledge as physicians.

Much of the information he was presenting, Petri said, which has been gathered from research that began following the 2003 SARS outbreak, is essential for people recovering, including their families and friends who need to know what to expect.

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Misperception about Post-Intensive Care

In the most severely sick patients who get care in the intensive care unit, there is a considerable danger of delirium. 

Delirium, Petri explained, "Is characterized by confusion," where one experiences a struggle in paying attention, reduced consciousness of people, time, and place. He also becomes incapable of interacting with other people.

This characterization, the professor and physician elaborated, is not a particular COVID-19 complication. However, it is, unfortunately, a common ICU care complication. 

Aside from receiving care in the ICU, other factors include pre-existing health conditions and advanced age. Some studies indicate that as much as 75 percent of patients receive treatment in intensive care suffering from delirium.

Possible Post-COVID-19 Effects

The problem is not just only with confusion during hospital confinement, but after that, which lasts for months.

For instance, at three and nine months from release from confinement, many of the patients who recovered from COVID-19 still had a problem with their ability to understand both spoken and written words, their short-term memory, and their ability to grasp and learn new things.

Because of this, medical experts have dedicated a significant initiative to lessen delirium not just in COVID-19 patients, but to all those receiving care in the ICU.

Methods that may help alleviate delirium include reducing the administration of sedatives, reorienting patients of the date, time and location, cognitive stimulation, and noise reduction, among others.

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Possible Prolonged Effects of the Virus

The most seriously sick patients who have COVID-19 frequently experience acute respiratory distress syndrome or ARDS and pneumonia while they are sick.

Doctors have not monitored patients in terms of recovery from COVID-19, long enough to discover long-term issues with breathing that would take place.

However, research of health care workers in China who had SARS as a result of the then SARS-Cov coronavirus, which spread during the outbreak in 2003, is reassuring.

Some Possible Impacts after Recovery from the Virus 

Lung impairment, according to medical study, which is measured by "interstitial changes seen on CT scans" of the pulmonary and lung function test results," is more often than not, healed two years after the illness.

The senses of smell and taste and smell may also be affected after suffering from COVID-19. Patients may encounter the loss of these two senses. 

According to the study, only one-fourth of the patients had noted favorable developments in one week. However, but within ten days, the majority of the patients recovered from the illness.

Another probable lingering effect is the experience of blood clots. This may arise in up to 25 percent of the critically ill patients of COVID-19.

Blood clots can lead to severe prolonged complications, research indicates, "If the clots break loose from blood vessels" to transfer through the lung and result in "pulmonary embolism." It may also go to the brain and lead to a stroke.

One study specifies that people with diabetes are at high risk of severe COVID-19, which may partly be referred to as an excessive reaction from "immune response to the contagion."

However, the pandemic and diabetes link may go in the opposite direction, too. Glucose elevations are identified in severe COVID-19 cases in several patients without prior diabetes history.

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