Question: You talked about potential long-term effects of COVID-19 disease among recovered individuals a while back and there wasn’t much information. How about now?

Answer: The post you’re referring is from 3/18, which feels like forever ago. But in the scheme of science and following cohorts of recovered patients over time, it’s not that long. According to the Johns Hopkins Covid Tracker, as of today we have slightly over 1 million individuals who have recovered from COVID-19… wow! Unfortunately, I still haven’t seen much data about the health of recovered COVID-19 patients. Here’s a quick run-down of what I think we know:

First off, most people who contract COVID-19 will have a mild case and the symptoms they are likely to experience in recovery are also likely to be mild (ex: lingering fatigue). Even so, “It takes anything up to six weeks to recover from this disease,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said in a March press briefing, and “people who suffer very severe illness can take months to recover from the illness.” Indeed, the types of issues hospitalized patients experience in recovery are more serious. Recently published results form a longitudinal study of 90 patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 showed that “94% (66/70) of patients who were discharged from hospital at the end of the study still had mild to substantial residual lung abnormalities on their last CT scans.” And among those who survive after being on a ventilator, the longer-term health conditions are even more severe with individuals also facing muscle atrophy and weakness.

All that said, my original answer from 3/18 remains today — we’ll know much more as we have more data tracking the health status of individuals who recover. In the meantime, if you want to know more about current thoughts on the matter, this Science article from earlier this month does a nice job laying out the concerns.