Long COVID patients twice as likely as patients with cancer to be in poor physical health or in pain

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-08-25 01:00

International

What does this mean?

Jump to: MultimediaAttachmentsExpert Reaction

A JAMA news report on an upcoming CDC study suggests long COVID’s symptoms may be worse than cancer’s symptoms. The study compared 1295 outpatients with post–COVID-19 symptoms and 2395 cancer outpatients between January 2020 and March 2021. One in three of the patients who had COVID-19 described their general health as fair or poor compared to one in four of those with cancer. Though they were more likely than the control group to be younger, and employed, 72% of patients who had COVID-19 had generalised muscle weakness compared with about 40% of the patients with cancer.