by Dr. Francis Collins, NIH
As devastating as this pandemic has been, it’s truly inspiring to see the many innovative ways in which researchers around the world have enlisted the help of everyday citizens to beat COVID-19.
An intriguing example is the COVID Symptom Study’s smartphone-based app, which already has been downloaded millions of times, mostly in the United States and United Kingdom. Analyzing data from 2.6 million app users, researchers published a paper last summer showing that self-reported symptoms can help to predict infection with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
New work from the COVID Symptom Study now takes advantage of the smartphone app to shed more light on Long COVID Syndrome, in which people experience a constellation of symptoms long past the time that they’ve recovered from the initial stages of COVID-19 illness. Such symptoms, which can include fatigue, shortness of breath, “brain fog,” sleep disorders, fevers, gastrointestinal symptoms, anxiety, and depression, can persist for months and can range from mild to incapacitating.
The latest findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, come from a team led by Claire Steves and Tim Spector, King’s College London, and their colleagues, and that includes NIH (US National Institutes of Health) grantee Andrew Chan, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and others supported by the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness.
The team began by looking at data recorded between March 24-Sept. 2, 2020 from about 4.2 million app users with an average age of 45, about 90 percent of whom lived in the UK, with smaller numbers from the US and Sweden.
For this particular study, the researchers decided to focus on 4,182 app users, all with confirmed COVID-19, who had consistently logged in their symptoms. Because these individuals also started using the app when they still felt physically well, the researchers could assess their COVID-19-associated symptoms over the course of the illness.
While most people who developed COVID-19 were back to normal in less than two weeks, the data suggest that one in 20 people with COVID-19 are likely to suffer symptoms of Long COVIDWorr that persist for eight weeks or more. About one in 50 people continued to have symptoms for 12 weeks or more.
That suggests Long COVID could potentially affect many hundreds of thousands of people in the UK alone, and millions more worldwide.
The team found that the individuals most likely to develop Long COVID were older people, women, and especially those who experienced five or more symptoms. The nature and order of symptoms — which included fatigue, headache, shortness of breath, and loss of smell — didn’t matter. People with asthma also were more likely to develop long-lasting symptoms, although the study found no clear links to any other pre-existing health conditions.
Using this information the researchers developed a model to predict which individuals were most likely to develop Long COVID. Remarkably, this simple algorithm — based on age, gender, and number of early symptoms – accurately predicted almost 70 percent of cases of Long COVID. It was also about 70 percent effective in avoiding false alarms.
The team also validated the algorithm’s predictive ability in data from an independent group of 2,472 people with confirmed COVID-19 and a range of symptoms. In this group, having more than five symptoms within the first week also proved to be the strongest predictor of Long COVID. And, again, the model worked quite well in identifying those most likely to develop Long COVID.
These findings come as yet another important reminder of the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health. This includes not only people who are hospitalized with severe COVID-19 but, all too often, those who get through the initial period of infection relatively unscathed.
Recently, NIH announced a $1.15 billion investment to identify the causes of Long COVID, to develop ways of treating individuals who don’t fully recover, and, ultimately, to prevent the disorder.
NIH is funding an effort to track the recovery paths of at least 40,000 adults and children infected with SARS-CoV-2, to learn more about who develops long-term effects and who doesn’t. If you’d like to find a way to pitch in and help, getting involved in the COVID Symptom Study is as easy as downloading the app by clicking here.