How many people with long COVID recover

Research is slowly shedding light on how many people get bettter from long COVID, despite debate over the definition of the condition, its cause and what ‘recovery’ even means. Improvements seem to plateau after one year: in a study of 1,106 people, close to 23% still had symptoms after six months, falling to around 19% after one year and 17% after two. Another study finds that one-third of people who had symptoms after six months no longer had them at nine months. Risk factors include being female, being older, having a high body mass index, smoking, having asthma or diabetes, and having a severe COVID-19 infection. Vaccination seems to reduce the risk. The diabetes drug metformin and the antiviral Paxlovid are showing promise for preventing long COVID — but only if given during the acute phase.

Daily briefing: Answers emerge about long COVID recovery – https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02190-8

Yikes!