Long COVID to blame for more than 3,500 deaths so far, CDC reports

Thousands of death certificates previously tallied by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as COVID-19 fatalities were actually related to long COVID, the ongoing symptoms that some people struggle with for weeks, months or even years after their initial recovery from a coronavirus infection.

The new findings from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, published Wednesday, count at least 3,544 deaths involving long COVID through June 2022 — a number researchers say is likely an underestimate of the true toll.

The tally makes up just 0.3% of the more than one million COVID death certificates the agency reviewed. They searched for keywords in the reported cause of death linked to what doctors call "Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19" or PASC, including terms like "chronic COVID," "long COVID," "long haul COVID," and "post COVID syndrome."