The omicron variant of the novel coronavirus may lead to a wave of long COVID patients in the beginning of 2022, a long-haul COVID expert recently told the Deseret News.
Dr. Bruce Patterson, who works for single cell diagnostic company IncellDx and the Chronic Covid Treatment Center, told the Deseret News that it’s too early to see long COVID-19 patients from the omicron variant.
- “I suppose in February we’ll see a massive wave,” he said.
Patterson said the omicron variant will likely spread similar to the delta variant, and create similar long COVID issues that the delta variant brought.
- “I mean, given what we’ve heard and what we’ve seen, and omicron just infecting everybody under the sun, we’ll see the same thing with an abundance of kids and adults,” he said.
Long COVID has been one of the consistent issues among people infected with the coronavirus. The infection doesn’t end with the dwelling of symptoms. People will suffer a number of COVID-19 symptoms for months after their initial infection.
In October, a study published in JAMA Network Open found that 45% of early COVID-19 survivors had at least one COVID-19 symptom one year after they were released from the hospital.
- Symptoms included fatigue, sweating, anxiety and muscle pain, among other issues.
As I wrote for the Deseret News, a study released in May found about 75% of patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms had at least one long-term symptom.