Toward Understanding COVID-19 Recovery: National Institutes of Health Workshop on Postacute COVID-19

Abstract

Heterogeneous disease manifestations are now recognized among some persons after initial recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases convened a virtual workshop to summarize existing knowledge and to identify key knowledge gaps regarding this condition.

Prevalence and Predictors of Prolonged Cognitive and Psychological Symptoms Following COVID-19 in the United States

“…A diagnosis of COVID-19 was coded for subjects that had self-reported positive SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR or antibody testing or for those that had exposure to a person with SARS-CoV-2 infection and subsequent symptoms of COVID-19 including fever > 99.5F, new onset cough, shortness of breath, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and/or loss of taste/smell ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Covid-19, 2019 ). “Prolonged COVID-19” was self-reported among COVID-19 participants who continued to have symptoms ≥1 month after initial diagnosis ( Datta et al, 2020 ; Lerner et al, 2021 ). COVID-19 status was trichotomized as negative, positive without prolonged symptoms and positive with prolonged symptoms.…”

Prevalence of Symptoms More Than Seven Months After Diagnosis of Symptomatic COVID-19 in an Outpatient Setting

“…Long COVID, postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or post–COVID-19 condition are terms introduced in the literature ( 1–5 ) to describe illness in persons who continue to report lasting effects several weeks to months after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Several months after the first cases of COVID-19, physicians, scientists, and patients alike started reporting unrelenting symptoms associated with COVID-19 that could be continuous or fluctuating in nature ( 6–8 ).…”

In-hospital complications associated with COVID-19

“…The increase in adiposity and subsequent elevation in body-mass index (BMI) is an important driver of the aforementioned global burden of diabetes, 7 and the pathophysiological link between obesity and diabetes has been well described. 8 Therefore, leveraging BMI, which is an easily measurable and inexpensive parameter, in resource-constrained settings to guide screening for diabetes could prove especially beneficial. Implementation of such a strategy would therefore require accurate analysis of the association between BMI and the risk of diabetes, drawn from nationally representative samples, as has been done in populations in HICs.…”

“…The public health effect of post-acute COVID-19 is substantial considering the large number of people infected by SARS-CoV-2 globally. 8 In addition to delineating the diverse manifestation across the full clinical spectrum of post-acute COVID-19, the pathophysiological mechanisms attributable to post-acute COVID-19, especially long COVID-19, need to be further elucidated among people with different demographic and clinical characteristics. 9 Furthermore, research on the effects of the serological features, together with immunological aberrations and inflammatory damage resulting from acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, on post-acute or long COVID-19 is needed.…”