Recently, as the outbreak affects more and more parts of the country, the aftermath of COVID-19 has been discussed more and more.
Does it affect sexual function? Will you lose your sense of smell and taste forever? Will the new crown cause brain shrinkage? What are the sequelae of being infected with the new crown?
We have compiled some information based on current research.
This is not an article discussing whether the sequelae of the new crown are serious. As far as the known sequelae are concerned, whether it is loss of taste or exhaustion, it is a negative feeling for each individual. Once a large number of people are infected, it will bring a heavy burden to the medical system.
Compared with worrying about various sequelae, it is more critical to avoid infection and avoid serious illness. This requires each of us to master the weapons of virus prevention, such as vaccination, wearing masks, gathering less, washing hands frequently, etc.
The epidemic is still going on for a long time, and we hope that everyone can fully understand the current scientific progress about the sequelae of the new crown. Protect yourself and your family from the virus.
What is the aftermath of COVID-19?
Although the term “new crown sequelae” is all over the Internet, there are still certain inaccuracies in the definition of reliable Chinese authoritative journals and various professional medical organizations.
This is mainly because “sequelae” is easy to associate with cause and effect and is not accurate enough. For now, it appears that some aspects of “COVID-19 sequelae” may be unique to COVID-19, but there are also many aspects that appear to be similar to the recovery period of other viral infections, severe illness, or sepsis. For example, patients who have been in the intensive care unit also have obvious physical decline and cognitive decline after discharge, which is very similar to the sequelae of the new crown.
So many studies tend to say “symptoms after infection” rather than “sequelae”. For the convenience of the following discussion, we still use the familiar name of “sequelae”.
From a general point of view, according to the definition of WHO, we define the post-COVID-19 situation as what we often call “new crown sequelae”. The conditions that need to be met to be called “sequelae” are:
Various symptoms during/after COVID-19 infection, both physical and mental;
Symptoms persisted for at least two months (i.e., three months from onset) and affected the patient’s life;
These symptoms cannot be explained by other diagnoses[1].
For example, a positive patient who goes out after a few weeks of isolation and walks a lot at first or breathes a little when going uphill may be caused by not enough activity for a long time, and most of them will slow down after a period of time. Slow recovery, this is the normal recovery process. The diagnosis of sequelae is met only if the symptoms persist for at least two months and the symptoms persist.
Which sequelae claims are biased?
Currently, research on the new crown is in a blowout period, and Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist of the WHO, has said that hundreds of papers on the new crown appear every day. In such a complex amount of information, we need to understand more background scientific knowledge.
First of all, let’s take a closer look at some of the sequelae of Shengguang.
1. 230 days of Covid-19 spreading to all organs?
Not much reference.
This is a study uploaded to the preprint site in December 2021[2].
Image source: Literature[2]
There is indeed one case in which the virus was detectable after 230 days, but the study involved 44 cadavers, representing patients who died after being unable to overcome the virus infection. The patients were barely vaccinated, 96% had at least one underlying disease, an average of 26 days of hospitalization before death, and 82% required invasive mechanical ventilation with intubation or tracheotomy.
This study is of little value to the hundreds of millions of us who have been vaccinated and have successfully defeated the virus even if they are infected with the new crown.
Also, this preprint that took the internet by storm four months ago has not yet been officially published through expert review.
2. Does the new crown cause brain atrophy?
Not much reference.
The study was published March 7, 2022 in the journal Nature. This is the first study to longitudinally compare brain images before and after infection with the new coronavirus [3].
Image source: Literature[3]
The authors themselves point out that the study only observed some changes in the brain, “but does not confirm whether these changes are partially reversible or long-term.”
The subjects of this study were all older (51-81 years old), 97% were white, the patients were hardly vaccinated, and they were mainly infected with the alpha virus strain, not the now popular Austrian Micron virus strains.
3. Will I lose my sense of taste and smell forever if I get COVID-19?
Most people can recover.
“Forever” is an exaggeration. A study in the journal Clinical Medical Research found that the majority (88%) of people who lost their sense of taste and smell recovered within two months [4].
From the current post-infection survey of Omicron, the rate of loss of taste, taste, and smell has been significantly reduced. According to the statistics of the epidemic technical briefing of the British Health Security Agency (ie the Department of Public Health) on January 14, 2022, the proportion of loss of taste and smell dropped from 34% in Delta to 13% in Omicron [5].
4. Can COVID-19 cause genital shrinkage or impotence?
Not much reference.
This statement comes from an American audio program: “An unnamed man in the United States says his genitals shrunk by 3.8 cm after contracting the new coronavirus”.
This man, who was in his 30s and had COVID-19 severe enough to be hospitalized, had erectile dysfunction and felt like his genitals had shrunk. There are also some urologists who have received similar patient self-reports.
Image credit: Insider. Man says COVID caused his penis to shrink by an inch and a half
At the same time, however, some doctors believe that erectile dysfunction can generally explain the small penis. So this is a question of seeing flowers in the fog and looking at the moon in the water.
We still look at it from scientific research. In the current study, it is reflected that the virus may have an impact on various systems of the whole body in severe patients, but it has not been shown to specifically target the reproductive system.
In the above statement about sequelae, the study subjects were infected with previous strains. At present, scientists are also paying attention to the sequelae of Omicron, but because the virus is very new, more research needs to wait.
What is reliable information about sequelae?
1. At present, these are the common “sequelae” of the new crown.
The study focused on past strains. According to UpToDate, a reference platform commonly used by clinicians, there are two main types of symptoms:
First, physical symptoms, of which fatigue is the most common symptom.
The proportion of common physical symptoms is as follows:
Fatigue (15% – 87%)
Dyspnea (10% – 71%)
Chest pain or tightness (12% – 44%)
Cough (17% – 34%)
Less common symptoms include loss of smell, arthralgia, headache, Sjögren’s syndrome, rhinitis, dysgeusia, loss of appetite, dizziness, myalgia, insomnia, hair loss, sweating, and diarrhea. .
The second is psychological symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, memory loss, cognitive dissonance, etc.
2. The sequelae of Omicron remain to be studied.
Omicron, the latest strain, only emerged in Africa at the end of November 2021, and the outbreak in Europe and the United States reached its climax in January 2022. The time is too short, and the data on the sequelae have not yet come out.
3. Various sequelae studies have certain limitations.
First, various research methods are used in various ways. Some have sequelae after four weeks of illness, while others are eight weeks or longer. Therefore, these researches are oranges and apples, and they are not comparable to each other.
Second, many studies on sequelae do not have strict control groups, and many only collect questionnaires from patients. Various legends about sequelae on the Internet may also produce nocebo (negative placebo effect) for patients. A typical example is that in a clinical trial of a vaccine, 1/3 of the subjects who were given normal saline felt tired, and 1/3 said they had headaches.
Third, the research on sequelae that everyone has seen so far is almost all about past virus strains. When looking at “old” data, interpret it with caution.
Scientists are improving research methods and conducting controlled and prospective studies on Omicron, which is sweeping the world. For example, six hospitals, including Massachusetts General Hospital, have joined forces to enroll about 900 new crown patients and continue to track them for three years. In this way, it is possible to observe the recovery of the patient, what factors affect the recovery, the proportion of sequelae, and so on.
We are still waiting for the latest research to give us more reliable informationinterest.
Before this, instead of worrying about the sequelae, I fell into excessive panic and anxiety. Better to be vaccinated and protected.
For the vast majority of people, avoiding infection and severe illness is more important than panicking.
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References
[1]Soriano J B, Murthy S, Marshall J C, et al. A clinical case definition of post-COVID-19 condition by a Delphi consensus[J]. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2021 .
[2]Chertow D, Stein S, Ramelli S, et al. SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence throughout the human body and brain[J]. 2021.
[3]Douaud G, Lee S, Alfaro-Almagro F, et al. SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure in UK Biobank[J]. Nature, 2022: 1-17.
[4]Printza A, Katotomichelakis M, Valsamidis K, et al. Smell and taste loss recovery time in COVID-19 patients and disease severity[J]. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2021, 10(5): 966.
[5]SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England. https:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/1050236/technical-briefing-34-14-january-2022.pdf
Planning
Planning: Jiu | Editor-in-Chief: Feidi
Typesetting: Xiao Snail | Source of cover image: Zhanku Hailuo