Overall, 57% of participants had evidence on PET/MRI of inflammation affecting the heart or lungs.
Plaque growth can lead to a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and other life-threatening cardiovascular events for as long as 1 year.
Post-exertional malaise, or exercise intolerance, was seen in 36% of those with long COVID.
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Using several public datapoints, the group looked for trends including any that might signal tradeoffs between COVID burden and economic and educational outcomes.
Survey results also revealed that women who had been sick with COVID were more likely to report heavy bleeding, missed periods, and spotting.
Frequent staff testing had the biggest impact in the prevaccine months, but still made a difference through the Omicron wave.
Improving uptake of the drug, a component of Paxlovid, could help reduce longer term outcomes, as well as severe disease, the authors said.
Underlying medical conditions significantly associated with long COVID were anxiety and/or depression, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, suppressed immune system, and ischemic heart disease.
COVID activity is on the rise in the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean and European regions, as well the South East Asia region where infections are up sharply in India.
Fitbit tracking and the participant survey found that lower step counts persisted, even after COVID restrictions eased.
The newly signed law requires declassification within the next 90 days and focuses on the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The WHO said Chinese researchers temporarily posted the market environmental sample sequences in advance of publishing their findings in Nature.
About 4,800 lives could have been saved during the winter 2021-22 Omicron wave if just 5% of COVID-19 patients had taken the antiviral drug, modelers estimate.
