The long-term consequences of coronavirus infection are continuing to come to light as the virus continues to rage on around the world, now for nearly one year. 

A new study conducted in the United Kingdom found that nearly a third of patients who recovered from COVID-19 were hospitalized again within five months, and one in eight recovered patients died from complications of the virus within months. 

The results of the study were originally published in The Telegraph, a newspaper out of Great Britain. It found that out of 47,780 people who were discharged from the hospital, 29.4 percent of them were readmitted within 140 days. Of those, 12.3 percent later died. 

COVID-19 has devastating and long-lasting effects on many of the organs of the body. Heart problems, chronic liver problems and kidney failure are the most common. Unfortunately, according to a report from The Guardian, these complications disproportionately affect “ethnic minority individuals” and those younger than 70. 

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“The idea that we have that level of increased risk in people — particularly young people — it means we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Dr. Charlotte Summers, an intensive care medicine lecturer not involved in the study, told The Guardian. 

Long-term respiratory disease has been found in nearly a third of all COVID-19 patients, most of whom had no prior history of the condition. 

An earlier study out of China found that nearly three-quarters of patients who recover from the virus still have symptoms up to six months later. The study also warned that in that time period, antibody levels drop dramatically, leaving a patient prone to reinfection. 

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The lingering conditions present in that study were largely fatigue and muscle weakness, while some participants also expressed that they had difficulty sleeping, plus depression and anxiety. 

In November here in the states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is “actively working to learn more about the whole range of short- and long-term health effects associated with COVID-19.” The CDC noted that several multi-year studies are underway to investigate how common the symptoms are, who is most likely to get them and whether those symptoms eventually resolve. 

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