50% of long COVID patients show improvement in 3 years — but the condition tends to linger in those with this subtype

Symptoms of long COVID ease in half of patients within three years of the infection that kicked off their illness.

That's the primary conclusion of a new study that tracked over 1,000 patients with long COVID, a chronic condition that can emerge after an infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Among the patients, the chance of improvement varied sharply depending on how the condition affected their bodily systems.

In the study, published Tuesday (Nov. 3) in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, roughly 60% of patients whose predominant symptoms were changes to their ability to taste or smell had significantly improved three years after their first positive test. But less than 20% of those with a multisystem presentation had improved in that time frame.

This latter group had symptoms that affected their cardiac, nervous and gastrointestinal systems, among others. An expert told Live Science that the condition resembled myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), which often arises after an infection and similarly impacts a wide range of bodily systems.

The new...