~16 Percent of COVID Cases Develop Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2

FRIDAY, June 5, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- About 16 percent of COVID-19 cases develop postacute sequelae of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 infection (PASC), according to a study published online May 27 in JAMA Network Open.Jiazi Tian, from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study using electronic health record data from 58 hospitals and affiliated clinics in four U.S. regions from 2017 to 2025 to quantify the gap between true PASC burden and diagnostic code-based estimates. The Precision Phenotyping for Research Cohorts (P2RC) custom artificial intelligence algorithm was implemented.The study included 457,950 COVID-19 cases; the P2RC algorithm identified 74,560 PASC cases (16.28 percent overall), which was more than twofold higher than the proportion identified by code-based surveillance (<7 percent). Overall, 67.27 percent of the 883 International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification codes associated with PASC represented chronic or potentially chronic conditions. Of the 74,560 patients with PASC, 89.31 percent developed chronic conditions requiring ongoing clinical management; this represented 14.54 percent of the total number of COVID-19 cases. There was considerable organ system heterogeneity; thyroid-predominant endocrine patterns were demonstrated in New England, while metabolic-predominant profiles were seen in Southeast Texas, Southern California, and Western Pennsylvania. Through mid-2024, there was an increasing prevalence of PASC (incidence rate ratios, 1.01, 1.00, and 1.02 per quarter in New England, Southern California, and Western Pennsylvania, respectively), indicating an accumulating burden."These patients are not absent from clinical care; they are absent from the diagnostic code that would identify them as long COVID patients," Tian said in a statement.Abstract/Full Text.Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter

~16 Percent of COVID Cases Develop Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2

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