More than 100,000 Britons are at risk of falling ill from the long Covid-19 crisis in the coming weeks as infections and hospital admissions rise, scientists have warned.
Covid cases in the UK are reaching record numbers, with the latest hospital data showing a 20% rise in daily admissions in the week ending 22 December, according to the NHS.
The UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) new national flu and Covid report, due to be published on Thursday, is expected to confirm that the number of Covid cases and hospital admissions has risen significantly since the last updates before Christmas.
This has led to fears that there could be a sharp rise in the number of long-term Covid-19 illnesses in the coming weeks, as any infection has the potential to lead to long-term Covid-19 illness, but severe illness – and hospitalizations in particular – significantly increases this number. risk, scientists say.
Although the highly contagious JN.1 subvariant circulating in the UK is not thought to be more serious than other recent Covid variants, falling vaccination rates over the past two years have increased the risk of developing severe symptoms if infected.
Scientists stress that it is extremely difficult to determine the true prevalence of long Covid-19 – and make accurate predictions about its future course – because there is no definitive diagnostic test and the variety of symptoms makes accurate reporting difficult.
But Professor Christina Pagel, a health data scientist at University College London, has made a number of conservative predictions about how many people will get Covid in the long term as a result of the current wave.
“I think it will certainly be tens of thousands, but it is very possible that it will be one to two hundred thousand,” she said. I.
She estimates the chance of developing long-term Covid due to infection is currently 2 percent, but notes that “this is a very rough estimate and there are large differences depending on age, gender, vaccination history and other health conditions.”
She added: “How many new cases emerge from this wave will depend on the total number of infections.” [for the two biggest waves so far] is that about 30 percent of the population became infected with Covid during the first wave of Omicron BA.1 and about 40 percent were infected during the BA.2 wave in March/April 2022.
“So even if we assume that only 20 per cent in this wave get infected – which I think is too low a number – around 11 million people in England will become infected, and even at the new long-term Covid rate of 1 per cent there will be 110,000. people,” he says. Pagel claims.
Other scientists agree there will be a surge in new long-term Covid cases in the UK.
Professor Steve Griffin from the University of Leeds estimated there could be “at least” tens of thousands of new cases in the coming months.
“What is most worrying is that it affects children and young people who are often overlooked when it comes to this terrible disease and who have to suffer the consequences due to a complete lack of appropriate measures in schools,” he added.
Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick, said: “The current wave of Covid will inevitably lead to thousands of new cases of long Covid.”
“Covid vaccination reduces the severity and duration of long-term Covid-19 illness, but limited access to the final booster jab – only over 65s, clinically vulnerable people and healthcare workers are eligible – means many people are more likely to get acute illness from the vaccine form. and suffer from acute illnesses.” Long-term consequences. Covid.”
Professor Young explained that before vaccines were available, it was generally accepted that around 10 per cent of all Covid infections resulted in long-term Covid-19 illness, defined as symptoms lasting more than three months after initial infection.
The long-term risk of getting Covid-19 is lower today than in the past because the virus is less severe and the vaccine has reduced the risk of serious infections, he said.
But he warned: “Current high infection rates and declining population immunity will lead to a significant increase in cases of long-term Covid-19 disease.” , ranging from muscle pain and shortness of breath to headaches and brain fog, which affects their performance and overall quality of life.”
While hospitalizations are expected to rise sharply, putting a huge burden on hospitals and those infected, scientists stress that hospitalization rates will remain well below previous peaks.
“My personal impression is that this wave will be as high as the big waves of 2022, and perhaps even the highest in terms of infections, but that Covid hospitalizations will not reach the peak of 2022 – and nowhere near the Peaks of the Epidemic.” . Covid spreads even before vaccination,” says Professor Pagel.
“But that doesn’t mean everything is okay. High infection rates are causing short-term disruptions to work as people get sick and leading to thousands of people developing new, long-term Covid-19 infections. Meanwhile, higher hospital admissions are clearly harmful for those sick enough to require hospital care and will also put pressure on NHS capacity as flu is also likely to peak this month.”
Hospitalizations increased 20 percent, to about 520 per day, for the week ending Friday, Dec. 22, compared with the previous week.
Professor Karl Friston, a virus modeller at UCL, predicts daily hospital admissions will peak at around 700 around January 10 – the highest since last spring, but well below the levels of between 1,000 and 1,200 seen at various times during the period from October 2022. and April 2023 were observed.
Hospitalizations will be lower than the 2022 peak due to immunity developed from previous infections and up to three booster shots in vulnerable populations who receive those shots.
And they will be significantly lower than in the waves before vaccinations, when immunity was limited to a relatively small number of previous infections.
The UKHSA report, published on Thursday, is expected to provide insight into key trends in Covid hospital admissions. However, people will have to wait until the next NHS report on January 11 for a more detailed picture, including daily hospital admissions.
Scientists warned on Tuesday that Covid cases could reach a new record by mid-January after the highly contagious JN.1 subvariant became the dominant strain by Christmas.
The latest available survey of winter infections by the ONS and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), published on December 21, showed that 2.54 million people had Covid as of December 13, more than double the number at the start of the month.
Infections are expected to rise sharply since then as people spend time together at Christmas and the virus thrives in cold conditions.
The new Long Covid cases are in addition to the existing cases. It is unclear how many people were affected as it is difficult to determine and there are no current estimates. But in March last year, the ONS estimated that 1.7 million people in the UK had suffered Covid symptoms for more than three months.
At that time, 40 percent of people with long-term Covid-19 first became infected with Covid more than two years ago, while long-term Covid is estimated to have significantly impacted the daily activities of nearly 400,000 people.
Professor Griffin described the high number of long-term Covid cases as “extremely worrying”.
“Chronic illness has historically been underserved across a wide range of conditions, and services provided to treat this disease have been dramatically reduced,” he said.
“The risk of this happening is simply no longer recognized in the national consciousness, and patients with long Covid may experience the same kind of gaslighting as has been seen in the past among people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).”
Source: I News
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