Long COVID has caused or contributed to at least 3,500 deaths in the United States, an analysis of death certificates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.
The study, published Wednesday, is believed to be the first nationwide examination of whether long COVID or related terms appear in official American death records. While it found that such phrases were recorded in only a tiny proportion of the more than 1 million deaths tied to infection with the coronavirus, the researchers and other experts said the results added to growing recognition of how serious long-term post-COVID medical problems can be.