Up to 10 per cent of Quebec health-care workers have experienced long COVID: study

MONTREAL – A study by Quebec’s public health institute has found that between six and 10 per cent of the province’s health-care workers have experienced long COVID.

The study, whose preliminary results were presented today at a Montreal conference on long COVID, found that one-third of workers said they have had severe symptoms and more than half had experienced symptoms for at least a year.

Dr. Sara Carazo, the study’s author and an epidemiologist at the institute, says that post-COVID illness has had a major effect on the health of those workers and their ability to do their jobs.

More than 26,000 of Quebec’s 400,000 health-care workers participated in online or telephone surveys, conducted between May and July.

The study found that three-quarters of respondents have had COVID-19 at least once and 10 per cent of those workers still had symptoms that had lasted more than 12 weeks.

The most common symptoms of long COVID reported by Quebec health-care workers were fatigue, shortness of breath, concentration problems, memory loss and brain fog.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2023.