More than one in five people across the United States is likely to suffer from long COVID-19, a new AI-generated review has found. According to the research published in the journal Med, around 23 per cent of adults experience the symptoms.

The data, collected from June 1-June 13 by the US Census Bureau and analyzed by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, added new questions from their regular ones, to assess the prevalence of post-COVID-19 conditions – also known as long COVID-19.

According to experts, long COVID-19 keeps on lingering months after the actual infection gets over. You may feel exhausted and tired all the time and cannot think straight. Food which you liked once begins to taste metallic and may face severe insomnia.

“Questions about the true burden of long COVID -- questions that have thus far remained elusive -- now seem more within reach,” said Hossein Estiri, senior researcher, head of AI research at Mass General Brigham in Boston.

For the study, researchers developed an AI tool that can sift through mounds of electronic health records looking for the frequently subtle symptoms related to long COVID-19. These symptoms occur in a wide range of body systems, which include extreme tiredness, chronic cough, heart issues and “brain fog.”

The symptoms of long COVID-19 typically develop weeks or months after a person shakes off their initial coronavirus infection. “Our AI tool could turn a foggy diagnostic process into something sharp and focused, giving clinicians the power to make sense of a challenging condition,” Estiri said in a Mass General news release.

According to experts, AI specifically looks for symptoms that are not properly explained by an affected person’s medical history – and those which have persisted for two months or longer and occur following a COVID-19 infection.

Experts say AI detects if breathlessness may be explained by pre-existing heart failure or asthma, rather than long COVID. “Physicians are often faced with having to wade through a tangled web of symptoms and medical histories, unsure of which threads to pull while balancing busy caseloads. Having a tool powered by AI that can methodically do it for them could be a game-changer,” said Dr. Alaleh Azhir, senior researcher and internal medicine resident at Brigham and Women’s.

Based on these parameters, the AI estimated that nearly 23 per cent of Americans likely have long COVID-19, a figure that researchers argue aligns more closely with national trends. The researchers say they plan to release the AI publicly on open access so doctors and health care systems can employ and test it.

According to experts, there is not one single cause for COVID-19, but multiple factors that contribute to the causes, which include:

Extremely small blood clots may not lead to a major event like a stroke, but they do prevent your lungs, brain, and other organs from working properly.

When your immune system overreacts and continues to cause inflammation in your organs and tissues long, it leads to this condition.

Many times, COVID-19 causes your immune system to start attacking parts of your own body.

Some viruses remain inactive, or dormant, in your body without you knowing it, and get reactivated causing the symptoms again.

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