Research from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is listing Alabama as having the heaviest caseload of the lingering problem known as :long COVID.” The study ranked U.S. States for the greatest number of cases of this post-Coronavirus illness, in 2022. Alabama, joined other Conservative States like Montana, West Virginia, North Dakota, Colorado, Tennessee and Oklahoma for having “long COVID’ rates of 9% to 10.5%.
The CDC identifies post-COVID conditions, also known as Long COVID, as including symptoms that occur or recur following acute COVID-19 illness. Those problems are fatigue, respiratory symptoms, and neurologic symptoms, among others. In 2022, close to 7% of U.S. adults reported ever experiencing Long COVID. The new research gathered data on which States have more than that. Alabama and Tennessee had the highest reported rates of “long COVID” in the South, but neighboring States came close. Conservative Louisiana and Mississippi were ranked as having 8% to 9% caseloads.
CDC analyzed data from U.S. adults aged over eighteen years of age for its Long COVID study. The respondents took part in what’s called the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. That’s a survey where respondents were contacted through a random digit dialing of both landline and cell phone numbers. Residents self-reported their age, sex, previous COVID-19 diagnosis, and did they ever have long COVID symptoms. That illness was defined as any symptoms lasting more than months that they didn’t have before catching COVID-19. The survey included all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
APR Gulf coast correspondent Lynn Oldshue covered the impact of long COVID in the Mobile area.
“The reality is right now, we really don't know a lot about it,” Dr. Haley Ballard told APR. She’s an Internal Medicine Specialist in Mobile. She said it’s not rare to see long-COVID cases in her clinic, but every patient is different.
“Right now we don't know who's more likely to get post-COVID than other patients,” Ballard said. “We just need more information and more studies to show what makes somebody more likely to have post COVID symptoms. Is there anything that we can do to prevent it? Right now we just don't have the information for that, because this is so new.”
Brain fog is one issue. So are symptoms like fatigue, cough, muscle aches, shortness of breath, headache, palpitations, or increased heart rate. Ballard said COVID feels like it has been here forever, but it’s still relatively new.
“We're really just looking at just over 18 months where we really started to see a lot of those infections in our area. It's unclear exactly how long. I have some patients who have gotten over their post COVID symptoms at about the three to six month mark,” Ballard said. “They realize, hey, I feel better. And all of these other symptoms are better. I have some patients who are at a year and are still dealing with some of the fatigue, body aches and things like that.”
For most COVID long haulers, symptoms may be mild and last a few months. For others COVID changed their lives.
“Before this all hit, I thought COVID was something made up,” David Eckenfels told APR.
He planned and saved for years to move from Atlanta to Fairhope. He and his wife Deanna were living their dream when David caught COVID at work in July 2020.
“When I caught it, it just tore me up,” Eckenfels said. “The doctor, he couldn’t explain it to me, or I couldn’t get it right. The doctor said it was like a bomb that off in your chest tore up your lungs.”
The CDC admits there’s more information on “long COVID” that needs to be gathered. The findings in the agency’s report, which lists Alabama as being in the top seven States for long COVID, addressed an important data gap. The CDC says the post-COVID illness represents greater health care needs among persons experiencing long COVID. Another concerns is how more data could inform policy, planning, or programming. Data at the State-level might also help identify disparities in Long COVID across the United States that could guide future health care efforts.
