In contrast to the popular belief that healthy young adults require lesser time than others to recover from COVID-19, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that it may not be the case. According to a survey, even the healthiest adults take at least three weeks to recover completely from the disease and continue to show symptoms.
The CDC, in a telephonic survey of 292 people across 13 states in the US, found that 35 percent of the patients failed to return to their normalcy even two to three weeks after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
Age No Bar
The survey was conducted between April 15 and June 25 using a random sampling method to choose COVID-19 positive patients over 18 years of age. At the time of testing, out of the 292 patients, 274 had at least one or two symptoms including fever or cough. Among the symptomatic patients, 26 percent of the patients, who were aged between 18 and 34 reported experiencing one or two symptoms.
Around 47 percent of the symptomatic patients were over 50 years of age while 32 percent were between 35 and 49 years. "Among the 274 symptomatic outpatients, 71 percent reported fatigue, 61 percent had cough and headache," the survey report said.
Chronic Health Condition Impacts Recovery
The presence of chronic conditions also had a significant impact on the recovery period. Of 180 persons with no chronic medical conditions, 28 percent were still experiencing symptoms. Out of these, 19 percent were between 18 and 34 years of age. Around 46 percent of patients with two medical conditions, and 57 percent with more than three chronic health issues, could not fully recover within 14-21 days period from the date of testing positive.
"Not returning to usual health within 2-3 weeks of testing was reported by approximately one-third of respondents. Even among young adults aged 18-34 years with no chronic medical conditions, nearly one in five reported that they had not returned to their usual state of health 14–21 days after testing," the report added.
The survey report comes amid growing resistance against wearing masks and people not taking the disease seriously. As of July 25, over 4.1 million in the US have been infected, with over 145,000 casualties. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has decided to ramp up testing on even asymptomatic and healthy individuals.
"FDA's authorization of the first diagnostic test to be used for anyone, regardless of whether they are showing symptoms of COVID-19 or have other exposure risk factors, is a step toward the type of broad screening that may help enable the reopening of schools and workplaces," Dr. Stephen Hahn, FDA Commissioner, said.
Fake CDC Notice Advising Against Wearing Mask
While the CDC is doing everything in its power to educate people about the seriousness of the disease, fake notices advising against the wearing of face masks have been making the rounds. A doctored CDC notice, which has been widely circulated on social media, falsely claims that the federal agency does not endorse wearing an N95 mask.
The hoax is part of a series of attempts to undermine the authorities dealing with the pandemic. There has been a great debate on whether wearing a mask can mitigate the risks of spreading the virus. But health experts around the world, including ones from the US, firmly believe that wearing a mask and social distancing are essential in dealing with the spread of the virus besides limiting exposure to it.
