Murugesu is a journalist by the name of jason arunn.

TOPSHOT - An attending physician listens to the breathing of a patient who is recovering after admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) in the coronavirus (COVID-19) patient nursing department of The HMC Westeinde Hospital in The Hague on April 4, 2020. (Photo by Remko DE WAAL / ANP / AFP) / Netherlands OUT (Photo by REMKO DE WAAL/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

A man is being treated at a hospital in the Netherlands.

REMKO DEWAAL/ ANP is shown.

According to survey data from the Netherlands, one in eight adults who had a covid-19 infections developed long covid symptoms.

The WHO defines long covid as an illness that usually occurs within three months from the start of covid-19, with symptoms that last for at least two months. These can include chest pain, loss of smell, and painful muscles.

It is difficult to know how many people experience long-term effects from covid-19 because of the many causes.

Aranka Ballering and her colleagues conducted a survey of more than 76,000 adults in the north of the Netherlands.

People were first surveyed about their health. From June 2020 to August 2020, they surveyed participants once a month.

A total of 4251 people were diagnosed with covid-19 for the first time. Two people of the same age and sex were matched with each of these people.

The researchers were able to determine which symptoms were caused by long covid by comparing the people who had it with the people who did not.

Long covid is a condition in which at least one symptom increases to moderate severity three to five months after a person develops it. One in eight people in the study who got covid-19 developed long covid. The most common long covid symptoms were loss of smell and taste.

It took longer for women's symptoms to return to baseline levels compared with men. According to Ballering, some studies show that women face greater barriers to healthcare and so seek out help for symptoms later.

The researchers couldn't say if the symptoms lasted past five months or how bad they were.

The findings may not be applicable to people with other variant of the disease. What effect vaccines may have on covid is not shown in the study. Most of the data was collected before the vaccine was available, so only 10 percent of the participants had been fully protected.

The majority of those studied were white and all of them lived in the Netherlands. Ballering says it's not clear how long the covid risk will change when people are exposed to the virus more than once.

Danny says that the figures are an underestimate. I can say from my research that we are undercounting.

The study shows the gaps in our knowledge. We need to work out the nuances of long covid after different versions.

The journal's title is "The Lancet."

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