The chance of developing long-term complaints after a corona infection has decreased after the pandemic. This is evident from research by the RIVM in the VASCO study. In this study, researchers follow tens of thousands of people over a longer period. The long-term complaints are also referred to as post-covid or long-covid. The expectation is that the chance of long-term complaints due to corona is permanently lower.

The research compared two groups of over five thousand people each. One group consisted of people who contracted corona in the autumn of 2023. The other group consisted of people who did not contract corona during the same period.

Almost no difference between infected and non-infected participants

The participants reported every three months whether they had complaints such as fatigue, difficulty with exertion, or concentration problems. The researchers looked at the number of people with new complaints after three, six, nine, and twelve months. It turned out that there was almost no difference between the groups that had and had not had corona.

Especially in the first months, long-term complaints reported

Participants could also indicate whether they thought their complaints were caused by the coronavirus. People who had contracted corona reported more often in the first three to six months after the corona infection that they had long-term complaints due to corona than participants without infection. After nine months, this difference had disappeared.

Causes for lower chance of post-covid

Many people have already had vaccinations and/or corona before. As a result, they have built up protection against the virus. This may be the reason for the smaller chance of long-term complaints. The coronavirus itself has also changed.

For people who now contract corona, it is important news that the chance of post-covid has become much lower. However, we cannot say that people will not experience post-covid complaints after an infection. The results of this research also say nothing about the people who previously had post-covid complaints and sometimes find it difficult to recover. In the Netherlands, about 400,000 people report complaints due to post-covid. Approximately 100,000 people have severe complaints.

Research on complaints before and after infection

Previous studies on post-covid mainly looked at complaints reported by people after a corona infection. And compared that with complaints from people without an infection. In this study, the researchers also looked at complaints that participants already had before their infection. This way, the researchers knew better which complaints were truly new and possibly caused by a new corona infection.

Read the scientific article with all the results of this research: Post-COVID-19 condition in individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 in autumn 2023 in the Netherlands: a prospective cohort study with pre-and post-infection data (external link).