A myriad of symptoms
More than 200 symptoms have been attributed, directly and indirectly, to long Covid. Unraveling the causes keeps getting harder.
One reason is that different coronavirus variants affect the body in various ways, leading to different Covid symptoms and likely resulting in different patterns of persistent conditions — from hair loss and fatigue to heart palpitations and smell and taste distortions.
Much information has been gathered about long Covid — also known as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2, or PASC — since the pandemic's first wave in 2020, yet less is known about whether its symptoms are attenuated by various treatments, vaccination, pre-existing immunity and newer virus strains, including delta and omicron.
Results of a small study from Italy suggest that the alpha variant that emerged in late 2020 was associated with a greater risk of muscle aches and pain, insomnia, brain fog, anxiety and depression than the original strain from China, which tended to be associated with comparatively more smell and hearing impairment.
The findings, slated for release in April at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases in Lisbon, are based on the health records of 428 Covid patients. Although many of the symptoms of long Covid observed in the study had been previously measured, it’s the first time they’ve been linked to different SARS-CoV-2 variants, says Michele Spinicci from the University of Florence and Careggi University Hospital.
Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg
The finding is interesting but was observed in only a small group of patients, which means it may not be seen in the wider population, said Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis who has been researching the long-term impacts of Covid for more than a year.
“There are a lot of variations that may explain differences in long Covid features over time — the variant that caused the infection is only one of them,” he said in an email.
It’s one of the reasons that the U.S. National Institutes of Health is studying the effects of Covid across a diverse cross-section of the population to better understand the drivers of persistent symptoms.
“The complexity lies in the myriad of symptomatology — and it’s immense,” says Cliff Rosen, a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and the director of clinical and translational research at Maine Medical Center’s Research Institute in Scarborough, who is involved in the NIH research, known as the Recover initiative. “It was easy when we had one viral strain at the beginning and then people got symptoms afterwards. Now we’ve had three more strains and people are vaccinated.”
While research teams are working around the clock to answer critical questions, the process is frustratingly slow for those looking for answers. Rosen isn’t optimistic that meaningful results will come anytime soon. “It’s going to be a while before we figure this out,” he said. — Jason Gale
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
