Symptoms may last more than a month, even in mild cases

Around one-third of people treated for COVID-19 as outpatients still report at least one symptom more than a month after their diagnosis.

Welcome to The Medical Republic’s COVID Catch-Up.

It’s the day’s COVID-19 news in one convenient post. Email bianca@biancanogrady.com with any tips, comments or feedback.

7 December

• One-third of COVID-19 outpatients still experience symptoms more than month later, study finds.
• Identical twins with identical lives have very different COVID-19 outcomes.
• Latest confirmed COVID-19 infection numbers from around Australia.

• Around one-third of people treated for COVID-19 as outpatients still report at least one symptom more than a month after their diagnosis.
  A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine reviewed 669 COVId-19 patients whose disease was mild enough to be managed in an outpatient setting. At an average of 43 days after diagnosis, 32% still had at least one symptom, with the most common being fatigue, shortness of breath, or loss of taste or smell.
• Identical 60-year-old male twins who worked in the same environment and had no differing comorbidities nonetheless experienced a very different course of infection with COVID-19, according to a report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
  The twins lived together, worked together in a car repair shop in Italy, and likely contracted COVID-19 from a customer. While both presented with mild pneumonia at the start of their illness and were admitted to hospital, one twin was discharged after two weeks but the other’s condition worsened and he was admitted to intensive care, intubated and developed septic shock.
  Fortunately, he recovered. The authors noted that genetics, environment, viral strain and initial viral load have all been cited as possible influences on COVID-19 outcomes; however in this case, all those factors were similar for the two individuals.
• Here are today’s confirmed COVID-19 infection numbers from around Australia to 9pm Monday:
  National – 27,972 with 908 deaths
  ACT – 117 (0)
  NSW – 4614 (4)
  NT – 59 (0)
  QLD – 1215 (3)
  SA – 562 (0)
  TAS – 230 (0)
  VIC – 20,345 (0)
  WA – 830 (0)