1 in 8 Recovered COVID-19 Patients Die Within 5 Months: Study
Look, I need to be upfront about something. The headlines youre seeing about this UK study are scary. And they should be. But theres some nuance here that matters.
A massive preliminary study out of Leicester University and the UK Office for National Statistics tracked 47,780 patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19 and then discharged between January and August 2020. The findings are sobering – 29.4% were readmitted to hospital within 140 days. And 12.3% – roughly 1 in 8 – died within that same period.
But heres what the New York Post headline didnt tell you. These werent just any COVID patients. These were people sick enough to require hospitalization in the first place. Thats an important distinction that changes how we interpret these numbers.
The research team compared their COVID cohort against a matched control group of non-COVID hospitalizations from the same time period. What they found was that COVID patients faced 3.5 times higher risk of readmission and a staggering 7.7 times higher risk of death compared to people hospitalized for other reasons.
Charlotte Summers, a lecturer in intensive care medicine at Cambridge who wasnt involved in the research, put it bluntly to The Guardian. The idea that we have that level of increased risk in people, particularly young people, means weve got a lot of work to do.
And shes right. We do.
What troubles me most is what this tells us about so-called long-haulers and post-COVID syndrome. Weve been so focused on the acute phase – ventilators, ICU beds, immediate mortality – that the long tail of this disease hasnt gotten the attention it deserves.
The study found that heart problems, chronic liver issues, and kidney failure were among the most common complications driving readmissions. Long-term respiratory disease showed up in nearly a third of patients, many of whom had no prior history of breathing problems.
Earlier research out of China found that roughly three-quarters of recovered patients still had symptoms up to six months later. Fatigue. Muscle weakness. Sleep difficulties. Depression. Anxiety. These arent minor inconveniences – theyre life-altering conditions.
And heres the kicker. The vaccine rollout cant come fast enough for vulnerable populations, but even vaccinated individuals who experience breakthrough infections need monitoring.
The CDC acknowledged in November that several multi-year studies were underway to investigate how common these long-term symptoms really are. But we’re flying blind in many ways, still trying to understand a disease we’ve only known for about a year at this point.
As a physician, what concerns me is how this data might be dismissed. I can already hear the arguments – well these were hospitalized patients, not representative of most COVID cases. And sure, thats true. Most people who get COVID dont end up in hospital.
But millions have been hospitalized worldwide. And if 1 in 8 of them are dying within five months of discharge, thats not a number we can ignore.
The study hasnt been peer-reviewed yet – its still in preprint form. So the usual caveats apply. But the sample size is enormous and the methodology appears sound. We should take this seriously while waiting for the formal review process.
Death isnt the only outcome that matters, as Dr. Summers noted. The survivors matter too. Their quality of life matters. The strain on healthcare systems from long-term COVID complications matters.
I dont say any of this to cause panic. But I do think we need to be honest about what were dealing with here. This virus leaves a mark on the body that outlasts the acute infection, sometimes by months. Sometimes permanently.
For those of us in medicine, that means preparing for a wave of post-COVID patients who will need ongoing care. For everyone else, it means taking this thing seriously even if you think youre young and healthy enough to survive the initial infection.
Surviving isnt the same as being okay.
