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MORE than 100,000 Brits are at risk of developing dreaded long Covid in the coming weeks, scientists fear.
It comes as Covid cases are surging, with hospital figures showing a 20 per cent jump in daily admissions in the week ending December 22.
Experts have predicted infections will continue to rise as a new variant has become dominant.
This has prompted fears among the medical community of a sharp rise in long Covid in the coming weeks, which can be triggered in people with severe cases of the bug.
Professor Steve Griffin, an academic in Cancer Virology at the University of Leeds, said: “Most upsettingly, this will include children and young people, which are often overlooked when it comes to this dreadful disease and are left exposed due to the total lack of proper mitigations in schools.”
JN.1, a highly contagious sub-variant of the Omicron, is currently sweeping the UK.
Although the new variant is not considered any more severe than other recent Covid variants, reduced immunity increases the severity of symptoms of those infected.
People suffering from the viral infection have warned that it feels “as bad” or “worse” than the bug they caught at the start of the pandemic.
Professor Christina Pagel, a healthcare data scientist at University College London, has made many predictions about how many people will develop long Covid because of the current wave.
She told inews: “I think it will be tens of thousands certainly, but it’s quite possible it will be one to two hundred thousand.”
She estimates a two per cent chance of developing long Covid from an infection.
But she said that was a “very rough estimate” and there’s “a lot of variability by age, sex, vaccination history and other health conditions”.
She added: “My personal feeling is that this wave will be as high as the large waves of 2022, and possibly even the highest so far, in terms of infections.
“But that hospitalisations with Covid will not reach the highs of 2022 – and will be nowhere near the highs of the pre-vaccination Covid waves.”
Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, told the newspaper: “The current wave of Covid will inevitably result in thousands of new cases of long Covid.
“Vaccination against Covid reduces the severity and duration of long Covid but restricted access to the latest booster jab – only the over 65s, clinically vulnerable and healthcare workers are eligible – means that many people are more likely to suffer the acute and long-term effects of Covid.”
Around 2.1million Brits are thought to have already long Covid, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests.
That accounts for those still experiencing symptoms four weeks after recovery from the bug.
Those with the condition have taken to social media to share how ill the condition has left them.
User @TheUnrealDavidC, wrote on X: “I feel like I’m been eaten away from the inside out by the remnants of this virus”.
@PalominoOMG, another user, said the condition is “pure hell”.
While another, @KarenTalaski, said the condition feels “like death warmed over”.
Before jabs became available, it was agreed around 10 per cent of all Covid infections led to long Covid – defined as symptoms that persist more than three months after initial infection.
But scientists say the risk of developing long Covid is lower now than in the past as the virus has become less severe and the jab are effective reducing severe infection.
What are the long Covid symptoms?
Medics previously warned that the list of symptoms that accompany the ailment could be as long as 62 – with those affected suffering issues such as hair loss and even reduced libido.
Now, experts in the US say they have narrowed this list down to just seven symptoms.
Writing in the Open Forum Infectious Disease, they looked at over 17,000 patients diagnosed with Covid across 112 healthcare facilities.
They found that the seven most reported ongoing issues were:
- palpitations
- fatigue
- hair loss
- joint pain
- chest pain
- shortness of breath (dyspnea)
- obesity
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