“While Covid has now claimed more than 1 million lives in the United States alone, these aren’t the only fatalities caused at least in part by the virus,” Lisa Rapaport writes over at Medscape. “A small but growing number of Americans are surviving acute infections only to succumb months later to the lingering health problems caused by long Covid. Much of the attention on long Covid has centered on the sometimes debilitating symptoms that strike people with the condition, with no formal diagnostic tests or standard treatments available, and the effect it has on quality of life. But new figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) show that long Covid can also be deadly. At least 4,600 Americans have died from long Covid since the start of the pandemic, according to new estimates from the C.D.C. This total, based on death certificate data collected by the C.D.C., includes a preliminary tally of 1,491 long Covid deaths in 2023 in addition to 3,544 fatalities previously reported from January 2020 through June 2022.” Lisa Rapaport, “Long Covid has caused thousands of U.S. deaths, C.D.C. reports,” Medscape.
