Post-covid in Sweden, Region Västra Götaland, and globally

Most people surviving COVID-19 recover, but a proportion continue to suffer from lingering and debilitating symptoms over an extended period.

Organ damage has been documented in some (heart, lungs) but in others objective findings are lacking and overall, clinical presentation and presence of pathological findings are heterogeneous.

In this study we will 1) follow all adults (≥18-years) in Sweden stratified by their infection status (no known infection, mild infection, survivors of hospitalization and intensive care) with respect to subsequent post-COVID diagnoses, new hospitalizations and diagnoses for other disorders, sick leave, and  mortality 2) follow infected and non-infected persons in the Västra Götaland region (VGR) through the VGR Clinical Data Warehouse (CDW) with respect to validation of post-COVID diagnoses, symptoms, clinical investigations carried out  (functional, biochemical and imaging) and comparison with non-infected 3) compare survivors of COVID-19 with non-infected persons in the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiologic (PURE) study (200,000 persons in >20 countries) with respect to late effects and function 4) perform a qualitative study in non-hospitalized men and women with past infection identified through primary care centres in Gothenburg.

Through these studies we aim to provide a comprehensive description of persons without and with past COVID-19 of varying severity with the purpose to provide a solid framework for designing future management.