An analysis of data from nearly 154 000 US veterans with SARS-CoV-2 infection provides a grim preliminary answer to the question: What are COVID-19’s long-term cardiovascular outcomes? The study, published in Nature Medicine by researchers at the Veterans Affairs (VA) St Louis Health Care System, found that in the year after recovering from the illness’s acute phase, patients had increased risks of an array of cardiovascular problems, including abnormal heart rhythms, heart muscle inflammation, blood clots, strokes, myocardial infarction, and heart failure. What’s more, the heightened risks were evident even among those who weren’t hospitalized with acute COVID-19.

The Backstory

At the beginning of the pandemic, the research team resolved to identify and address important knowledge gaps around COVID-19, study senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, told JAMA in an email. “At that time, none of us knew anything about long COVID,” noted Al-Aly, who is chief of research and development at the VA St Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St Louis. “Over several weeks, we started hearing about patients who were not fully recovering and had lingering issues including heart problems.” These patients—who call themselves long haulers—inspired the team to study long COVID, also known as post-COVID conditions.

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