--- title: Many Long COVID Symptoms Resolve Within a Year: Study description: Many Long COVID symptoms following a mild case of COVID-19 resolve within a year, according to a new study in the BMJ. canonical: https://time.com/6246564/how-long-does-long-covid-last/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-01-11T23:30:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:27.389Z article:section: Health og:title: Many Long COVID Symptoms Resolve Within a Year, Study Suggests og:description: At least among people who had mild COVID-19 og:url: https://time.com/6246564/how-long-does-long-covid-last/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4fe09780b61ae13/698a396b457a52d7dad67359/long-covid-symptoms.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Long Covid Syndrome og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Many Long COVID Symptoms Resolve Within a Year, Study Suggests twitter:description: At least among people who had mild COVID-19 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4fe09780b61ae13/698a396b457a52d7dad67359/long-covid-symptoms.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Many Long COVID Symptoms Resolve Within a Year, Study Suggests > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: For Kids with Long COVID, Good Treatment Is Hard to Find [Watch (HLS stream): For Kids with Long COVID, Good Treatment Is Hard to Find](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/rGfeDAvo.m3u8) (2:33)  _Published 2022-10-26. Families across the country are on similar odysseys for pediatric Long COVID care. While research is accumulating and doctors are learning more, multiple families interviewed by TIME say they faced ignorance, dismissal, or disrespect from doctors, leaving desperate parents to fight for their children’s recovery themselves._  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Jan 11, 2023 11:30 PM UTC  A Long COVID patient at a medical appointment in Berlin on July 7, 2022. A Long COVID patient at a medical appointment in Berlin on July 7, 2022. Joerg Carstensen/dpa—Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Jan 11, 2023 11:30 PM UTC How long does Long COVID last? There’s no single answer, but for most people who get the condition, post-COVID symptoms like [fatigue](https://time.com/6215346/covid-19-rest-helps/), cognitive impairment, and pain linger at least several months. For others, they last much longer. A [new study](https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj-2022-072529) published in _The BMJ_ may help narrow down the window. Among people who developed Long COVID after a mild case of COVID-19, researchers find, most Long COVID symptoms improve within one year. That’s not the case for everybody. Among people in the U.K. who self-reported Long COVID symptoms as of December 2022, 30% said they’d been sick for at least two years, according to [a recent report](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/infections#long-covid) from the U.K. Office for National Statistics. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [also warns](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html) that Long COVID complications can last years. Still, the new _BMJ_ study—which was based on medical records kept by a major Israeli health system—provides promising signs that many Long COVID symptoms clear up with time. The researchers tracked almost 300,000 children and adults who had mild COVID-19 (meaning they were not hospitalized) at some point from March 2020 to October 2021; some were vaccinated when they got infected and some were not. For comparison, the researchers also tracked almost 300,000 people of similar demographics who did not test positive for COVID-19 during that time frame. Within the first six months after getting sick, people who had COVID-19 were at increased risk of numerous symptoms, including loss of taste and smell, concentration and memory problems, cough, respiratory disorders, weakness, chest pain, muscle aches, and more. But by a year post-infection, the risk for many symptoms wasn’t significantly different among people who had COVID-19 versus those who tested negative. There were some exceptions, though. Even after a year, people who had gotten COVID-19 were still more likely to suffer from symptoms including smell and taste loss, weakness, concentration and memory problems, palpitations, and breathing difficulties, according to the study. However, even for most of these symptoms, the risk difference between the COVID-positive and COVID-negative groups was not as dramatic as it was during the first six months of follow-up. Overall, Long COVID [symptoms didn’t differ drastically depending on whether someone was vaccinated](https://time.com/6211659/long-covid-after-vaccination-booster/) or unvaccinated when they got sick. But those who were vaccinated had a significantly lower chance of having prolonged difficulty breathing, according to the study. There were some limitations to the research. It only included people who tested positive up to October 2021, before the [Omicron variant became dominant](https://time.com/6197597/who-names-covid-19-variants-pi/), so it’s unclear how well these findings translate to the present day. The study was also based on medical records, which may not reflect everything about someone’s day-to-day health. While it’s encouraging that many symptoms improved over the course of the study, even several months of Long COVID symptoms [can be highly disruptive to someone’s life](https://time.com/6186429/suicide-long-covid/) and livelihood. Since the only definite way to avoid these symptoms is not to get infected in the first place, tools like masks, vaccines, and ventilation will remain important public-health tools for as long as the virus continues to spread. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6246564/how-long-does-long-covid-last/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6246564/how-long-does-long-covid-last/"},"headline":"Many Long COVID Symptoms Resolve Within a Year, Study Suggests","datePublished":"2023-01-11T23:30:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:51:27.389Z","description":"At least among people who had mild COVID-19.","url":"https://time.com/6246564/how-long-does-long-covid-last/","keywords":["COVID-19","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4fe09780b61ae13/698a396b457a52d7dad67359/long-covid-symptoms.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jamie Ducharme","jobTitle":"Ducharme is a contributor to TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4fe09780b61ae13/698a396b457a52d7dad67359/long-covid-symptoms.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Long Covid Syndrome","caption":"Long Covid Syndrome","creditText":"Joerg Carstensen/dpa—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6246564/how-long-does-long-covid-last/","name":"Many Long COVID Symptoms Resolve Within a Year, Study Suggests"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"For Kids with Long COVID, Good Treatment Is Hard to Find","description":"Families across the country are on similar odysseys for pediatric Long COVID care. 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