More than 3,500 Americans have died from long Covid, CDC report finds
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More than 3,500 Americans have died with ‘long covid’, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The deaths have been overwhelmingly among people over the age of 85 and those with chronic underlying health conditions, such as heart disease and cancer.
Analysts looked at deaths over the 30 months of the pandemic through June 2022. Experts suggest that higher levels of inflammation in patients with prolonged Covid have exacerbated underlying conditions in patients who were already sick, increasing the risk of death.
Long Covid is a general term for symptoms that persist for months after clearing the initial infection. Experts are divided on the impact it could have on society, with some describing it as a “silent epidemic” while others suggest its scale may have been exaggerated.
The above shows long Covid-related deaths (green bars) and Covid-related deaths (blue line). Shows that long Covid deaths increased shortly after Covid deaths
This shows that those over the age of 85 were at a much higher risk of having long Covid on their death certificates than those in the younger age groups.
the CDC analysis analyzed the death certificates at the national level from January 2020 to June 2022 presented to the National Vital Statistics System.
Certificates mentioning ‘long-term COVID’, ‘long-distance COVID’, ‘chronic COVID’ or ‘post-COVID syndrome’ were included in the analysis.
A total of 3,544 deaths were recorded in which long Covid was mentioned as a contributing factor. But there were no examples of prolonged covid as the leading cause of death.
Breaking down the data by age, it showed that those over 85 years of age were at higher risk of death from prolonged covid.
The men in this group had a death rate of 125.5 per 100,000 people in the group, while the women had a rate of 112.4. For comparison, people ages 50 to 64 had a rate of 20.3 for men and 12 for women. The rates were even lower in the younger age groups.
This shows that American Indians or Alaska Natives were more likely to have a long list of Covid as a contributing factor on their death certificates (green bar). This group was also at higher risk for the condition.
Of the 2,490 prolonged Covid deaths with available data, 1,417, or 57 percent, were among those 75 and older.
Writing in the report, Dr. Farida Ahmad, a CDC health scientist, and other report authors suggested that people could die from prolonged covid due to “exacerbation of existing conditions.”
Previous studies have suggested that high levels of inflammation in patients could exacerbate underlying conditions, such as heart problems, increasing the risk of death.
But yesterday scientists warned that the report should be taken with a grain of salt, saying it was difficult to draw conclusions from the study without more data.
Dr. Benjamin Abramoff, director of post-Covid assessment and recovery at Penn Medicine, told the Washington Post that more details were needed about the patients’ medical history and the severity of their covid infection.
“A death weeks after a severe infection leading to covid pneumonia and hospitalization paints a different picture than deaths in outpatients months after infection,” he said.
Dr. Francesca Beaudoin, director of Brown University’s longstanding Covid initiative, warned that the death certificate data was “full of uncertainty and ambiguity.”
There has only been one code for prolonged covid deaths since October 2021, he warned.
But many medical examiners likely don’t know that long-term covid can be listed as a cause of death, or even know which deaths would fall into the category.
Dr. Ahmad said ABC News: ‘This is the first time that we have used data from death certificates from the National Statistics System to identify deaths with prolonged Covid.
“Because this is a new analysis and the first time we’ve seen prolonged covid in death certificates, I think many of the aspects of the report stand out as unique.”
The US government estimates that 23 million Americans have long-term Covid, the equivalent of seven percent of the US population.
The most common symptoms are fatigue, shortness of breath, headaches, mental confusion, joint and muscle pain, and an ongoing loss of taste and smell.