Nearly a third of Covid-19 hospital patients readmitted within 140 days

People discharged from hospital after Covid-19 appear to have increased risks of diseases across multiple organs and nearly a third are readmitted to hospital in the following months, according to a new study co-led by researchers at UCL. The study, published today in The BMJ , looked at nearly 50,000 people who were discharged from hospital by August last year and compared them to a control group who were matched according to personal characteristics and 10 years of medical history. Over an average follow-up of 140 days, patients discharged after Covid-19 had higher rates of respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes (six, three and 1.5 times greater respectively) than similar individuals in the general population. During the same period, nearly a third of individuals were readmitted to hospital (14,060 of 47,780) and more than one in 10 (5,875) died. Senior author Dr Amitava Banerjee (UCL Institute of Health Informatics) said: "Our study shows the substantial long-term effects of acute Covid-19. As the effects are seen across multiple systems, the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of post-Covid syndrome are likely to require integrated rather than organor disease-specific approaches." National statistician Sir Ian Diamond, co-author of the paper, said: "The increase in risk was not confined to the elderly and was not uniform across ethnic groups.