The omicron COVID-19 variant that swept the world in late 2021 and early 2022 is not as likely to cause long COVID in those who get infected, a study released Thursday determined.

The study was published in the Lancet and collected data from thousands of people participating in the Zoe Health Study.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that long COVID symptoms generally could last weeks or months after infection. Long COVID can cause patients to have difficulty breathing, coughing and general tiredness well after being infected with the virus.

While long COVID symptoms might be less likely with those who are infected with the omicron variant, researchers said the condition’s symptoms remain a concern.

“Omicron appears to cause less severe acute illness than previous variants, at least in vaccinated populations,” the study noted. “However, the potential for large numbers of people to experience long-term symptoms is a major concern, and health and workforce planners need information urgently to appropriately scale resource allocation.”

The CDC noted that unvaccinated people generally face a higher risk of long COVID symptoms.

One caveat to the study is it does not detail the duration of long COVID symptoms, nor does it address the severity of the symptoms.

The study noted that because of the large number of people infected with the omicron variant in late 2021 and early 2022, the number of people suffering from long COVID also increased.

It's been months since your ability to taste and smell disappeared after a COVID-19 infection. You've tried to schedule an appointment with a specialist — if you were able to find one — only to discover waiting lists of six months or longer.

Video above: Here's what researchers say about long COVID

"There was this explosion of patient calls after the pandemic started, and we couldn't see 10% of the patients that wanted to come to the clinic," said Dr. Justin Turner, associate professor of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

Unfortunately, that's still the case, leaving many who have yet to recover their sense of smell and taste struggling to find help, said rhinologist Dr. Zara Patel, who is a surgeon who focuses on treatment of the nose and sinuses.

"One of the big problems we realized at the beginning of the pandemic is that almost no one other than a few specialists knew anything about smell loss and how to go about diagnosing or treating it," said Patel, a professor of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

Both Stanford and Vanderbilt have established clinics to treat and research smell loss, two of a handful in the United States.

"The sad and most common thing I hear from patients in my clinic who have seen multiple physicians before they get to me is that they were told: 'There's really nothing you can do. You'll just have to see if your smell will come back with time,'" Patel said.

"When in reality, the sooner we start any definitive intervention, the more likely we are to be able to bring back smell."

To address the issue, Patel said she gathered 50 experts to create a 600-plus-page consensus that combined vetted scientific knowledge and medical best practices on smell loss.

"It's the first peer-reviewed compendium of its kind on olfaction," Patel said. "And it's open access — not just for physicians, but for patients, for anyone to read."

Video below: Teen shares medical condition developed after battle with COVID-19

The guidelines, published in the journal International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology, lay out a plan of action for general practitioners on how to examine, diagnose and treat smell loss — including when to make referrals to a specialist.

Patel encourages people with smell loss to print out the clinical assessment (see below) and take it to their doctor.

"We wrote this as a resource for patients to advocate for themselves — and for physicians who simply just don't have the training or the expertise in this area," Patel said. "They don't just have to say, 'Oh, there's nothing that you can do.' They can use this and learn about the different options for treatment."

A trip to the doctor

The clinical assessment outlines a recommended order for the diagnosis of smell loss from any cause, not just COVID-19.

Patient history: A physician should take a detailed patient history, according to the guidelines. That will include questions about onset, severity and psychological impact of the loss of smell, along with possible culprits such as exposure to toxic chemicals, injuries or surgery to the head or nose, and radiation for cancer.

Headaches, chronic sinus issues, autoimmune disorders, some medications and vitamin or mineral deficiencies can be associated with smell loss as well as the common cold, flu and other viral illnesses such as COVID-19.

Age also can play a factor — all of us partially lose our sense of smell as more olfactory nerves fail to regenerate. People with Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis often have smell loss due to their illness's impact on the brain.

Smell test: The doctor should administer a verified smell test. However, be aware some tests may not be sensitive enough to pick up subtle nuances in loss of smell, possibly leading a doctor to say nothing is wrong.

Some patients had that experience early in the pandemic when about 60% of people who had the Alpha and Delta variants complained of smell and taste loss, Turner said.

"When those patients started to be objectively tested, that positivity rate went way up — around 80% or even 90% of patients had some form of dysfunction if you really tested them," Turner said.

It can also work in reverse, with many people unaware of nuances in smell recovery, said Dr. Eric Holbrook, an associate professor of otolaryngology and head and neck surgery at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"There's been papers showing that humans have difficulty assessing gradual change in their sense of smell," Holbrook said. "Testing can differentiate a little bit, and it can be encouraging for some people to see that there has been a change."

Physical workup: A full physical exam should be done, including a nasal endoscopy and an examination of cranial nerves. If the patient history shows evidence of a neurological disorder or chronic sinus inflammation, further testing should be ordered, the guidelines note.

If tests are positive, the patient should be referred to a specialist to treat that specific disorder. For example, a person with chronic sinusitis would be referred to a rhinologist.

If a specialist is needed, Patel suggested using the American Rhinologic Society's website to find one in your area.

Potential treatments

The guidelines recommend various treatments, depending on the cause of the smell loss.

Underlying disorder: If the loss of smell is due to an underlying disease, such as chronic sinusitis or neurological condition, the guidelines suggest physicians refer the patient to a specialist and provide treatment options.

Surgery and trauma: If the loss is due to skull surgery, treatment with omega-3 fatty acids is recommended. If trauma such as a car accident is the cause, oral zinc and topical vitamin A are options.

"Using the term 'options' means that either there is very low level data that it may help," Patel said, "or there are conflicting studies where some show it helps and some do not, but there is no data to suggest harm."

Viral infections: If the smell loss is a result of a viral infection such as COVID-19 or the flu, a recommended treatment is smell training, a process in which patients practice smelling scents twice each day for at least six months.

"We start with four odors that are in different categories of smell so that they will stimulate different types of olfactory receptor neurons in your nose: lemon, rose, eucalyptus and clove," Patel said.

Another recommendation is the use of steroids via a squeeze bottle nasal irrigation device similar to a neti pot, Patel said. Steroid nasal sprays don't reach far enough up into the nose to reach the olfactory nerves.

"We add a topical steroid to the saltwater rinse and that allows you to bathe the neurons in the nose with a potent anti-inflammatory medication," she said.

Safety studies on the use of steroids for chronic sinusitis patients have shown the body absorbs few steroids this way, she added: "So you don't run into all those side effects that people get when they take steroids systemically by mouth or by injection."

Other treatment options (not fully supported by research) for viral-induced smell loss may include topical vitamin A and omega-3 fatty oil supplements, the guidelines note.

The consensus also specifies which medications and treatments have little to no science supporting their use, such as systemic vitamin A, oral or nasal zinc, oral steroids or steroid nasal sprays, and platelet-rich plasma nasal injections.

When smells are nasty

People with smell loss can suddenly begin smelling vile odors: Food and drink smell rotten, decayed, metallic or chemically pungent. Doctors call the condition parosmia, caused when smell receptors fail to deliver accurate information to the brain. Distorted smell can occur after head trauma, neurological conditions or viral infections such as COVID-19.

"Parosmia is something that we have always seen with post-viral smell loss," Patel said, "but not nearly to the same extent as we see it with COVID-19-related smell problems."

The good news is that experts think parosmia is a sign of recovery. The guidelines consider smell training and certain medications as treatment options.

"Some people may respond to medications we call neuro-modulating agents — gabapentin, pregabalin, amitriptyline — medications that modulate the nerve signal back to the brain," Patel said.

Emotional fallout

Finally, the guidelines state that your physician should discuss the emotional impact that a loss of smell can have and offer referrals to therapists or specialists as needed.

Some people manage fine without a sense of smell, Patel said. For others, it can lead to depression and malnutrition, especially if smell is distorted.

"Imagine you went to go eat and the food smelled and tasted like rotting flesh," Patel said. "People end up with wild fluctuations where they lose a ton of weight, then they gain a ton of weight by finding some bland but highly fatty or starchy-type food that is safe for them."

Groups such as Fifth Sense and the Smell and Taste Association of North America have mobilized to help, offering affirmation and hope, tips on smell training and even recipes to bolster appetite.

"A lot of our enjoyment of our environment is actually through our sense of smell," Turner said. "Simple things like the smell of spring flowers, the smell of your child and your spouse or your significant other are ingrained in our minds."

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the omicron variant sweeps across the nation, prompting long lines at COVID testing sites, there is a small silver lining: there are fewer hospitalizations and deaths from omicron than from last year's delta variant.

"Our vaccines, especially when combined with boosters, have remained extremely effective at keeping people out of the hospital and it is saving their lives," said U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.

Still, since omicron began spreading in the U.S. over the holiday season, there have been millions of new COVID infections.

“This omicron variant is more transmissible than previous versions,” said Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, a professor at the CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.

Dr. Lee is also the executive director of PHICOR (Public Health Informatics, Computational and Operations Research) and has been studying and tracking COVID since the pandemic began.

“Based on the data, it looks like the peak of this current omicron wave will probably occur sometime in mid-January,” he said.

By then, millions more Americans could potentially be infected with COVID. However, it’s what happens in the months after those infections that will need to be looked at closely, including what omicron might mean in terms of new long-haul COVID cases.

“Long COVID is something that's many times overlooked and not discussed,” Dr. Lee said. “People are focusing on things like deaths or potentially hospitalizations, and so many people tend to forget there is a significant percentage of people who are suffering from long COVID.”

Dr. Lee says with previous variants, there has been some correlation between how severe a COVID case is and how likely that person will become a long-hauler. Yet, he says, there is something about that which needs to be emphasized.

“This is not a super strong correlation,” he said. “Meaning, that there have been many cases of people having mild milder symptoms or milder COVID-19 early on, but they continue to have persistent symptoms.”

Those symptoms can run the gamut: from a loss of taste or smell to muscle pains to brain fog, among others.

The World Health Organization defines long COVID as having symptoms more than three months after initial infection, a timeline not reached with omicron yet.

“So, it's not clear what percentage of people who've been infected with the omicron variant will develop these persistent long COVID symptoms versus other variants,” Dr. Lee said.

It is something that, for omicron cases, might not become clearer until the spring.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — In March 2020, Diana Berrent shared her coronavirus journey with the world, documenting her 18-day quarantine with daily videos.

"No one thinks that they're going to be the first one on their block to get the plague, but you know, life happens fast," said Berrent. "I realized I was going to be among the first survivors."

Able to recover at home, Berrent channeled her gratitude into finding ways to help others.

"I am going to be participant 001 at Columbia Presbyterian's effort to recruit survivors to donate their blood and plasma to gather the antibodies and hopefully save the lives of people who are dying," she shared with followers online, in March 2020.

Berrent says she got completely obsessed with the idea of convalescent plasma. During quarantine, she launched Survivor Corps, a grassroots movement mobilizing COVID-19 survivors to donate plasma and support research.

"As a survivor, I had built this internal hazmat suit that I could share with other people, and it was incredibly powerful," said Berrent.

While grateful to support science and help patients, Berrent would later describe this badge of honor as a ticking time bomb. Her COVID-19 symptoms lingered weeks after recovering, and new ones appeared.

"By the middle of April, we knew. Surviving COVID did not mean recovering from COVID," she said.

Her network for survivors became a refuge for long COVID sufferers, thousands of people living with debilitating symptoms after recovering from the virus.

"It's not brain fog; it's cognitive dysfunction," Berrent says. "The people who suffered the fatigue describe it like literally being hit by a bus and then rolled over by a train."

With help from a small team, her nonprofit has garnered nearly 180,000 members online.

"It took a small group of suburban moms who were Zoom schooling on the side to bring everyone together," said Berrent. "I like to think of ourselves as the Moms Demand Action of COVID."

Taking survivors' stories to the scientific community, they now have a seat at the table.

"We act as a subject matter expert to the White House Task Force, to the CDC, to the NIH. I sit on the NIH's RECOVER committee," said Berrent. "I sit on more steering committees than I can count."

Their advocacy has helped launch research studies at institutions like Yale.

But while Congress approved more than $1 billion to study long-hauler COVID, patient advocates are calling for more urgency to get it in the hands of researchers.

"There are scientists throughout the U.S. who are trying to do research," said Berrent. "And they're saying we can't do anything because we are waiting for the NIH to distribute funds."

Last month, the agency announced plans to build a national study population. More than 100 researchers will get funding for the large-scale effort.

"We're there to give them signals, to give them signs of what's going on. Of what people are suffering from. But they need to do the real science," said Berrent. "People are losing hope, and that's not an ok place to be at this stage."

After twenty months, their network of survivors seeking refuge continues to grow.

"We have a long way to go," said Berrent. "What keeps me going is we're making tremendous progress. People are listening to us. We are changing the discourse."

Can kids get "long COVID" after coronavirus infections?

Yes, but studies indicate they're less likely than adults to be affected by symptoms that persist, recur or begin a month or more after infection.

Estimates vary on how often the symptoms known as long COVID-19 occur in kids. A recently published U.K. study found about 4% of young children and teens had symptoms more than a month after getting infected. Fatigue, headaches and loss of smell were among the most common complaints and most were gone by two months.

Coughing, chest pain and brain fog are among other long-term symptoms sometimes found in kids, and can occur even after mild infections or no initial symptoms.

Some studies have found higher rates of persisting symptoms than in the U.K. study, but kids are thought to be less commonly affected than adults. About 30% of adult COVID-19 patients develop long-term symptoms, according to some estimates.

Experts aren't sure what causes the long-term symptoms. In some cases, it could reflect organ damage caused by the initial infection. Or it could be a result of the virus and inflammation lingering in the body.

Kids can develop other rare problems after an initial coronavirus infection, including heart inflammation or a condition known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome. That involves fever and inflammation affecting different body parts, among other possible symptoms. Affected kids generally need to be hospitalized but most recover. A similar condition can occur in adults.

The rapid spread of the highly contagious delta variant has some doctors worrying about the potential for higher numbers of children being at risk for long COVID-19 and these other conditions.

Because of the potential for long-term consequences, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends follow-up doctor visits after children recover from an initial coronavirus infection.

BALTIMORE — Months after their COVID-19 infections, patients are experiencing what’s known as 'Long COVID,' but now some are seeking treatment who never tested positive or got sick.

"My heart goes out to these patients who are just human beings trying to make sense of their symptoms," said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a lung doctor at Johns Hopkins.

Galiatsatos, known as Dr. G, works at the Post-Acute COVID-19 Clinic at Hopkins. Since last May, they’ve seen hundreds of patients. Most are experiencing ongoing symptoms after a battle with COVID-19, but some never knew they had COVID and have been sick for months with no answers.

"They [patients] are like, 'I didn’t feel well. It wasn’t horrible and it didn’t send me to the hospital. I just didn’t feel well. And it just felt like the bad flu or a bad cold'," said Dr. G.

They didn’t test positive for COVID either due to lack of access to testing, lack of symptoms, or a false negative result.

"Then they kind of speak to I’ve never felt the same way again," said Dr. G.

Experts don’t yet know what causes long COVID or why some people have persistent symptoms while others recover.

As the CDC investigates the full spectrum of COVID, including long-term effects, Post-Acute COVID Care Clinics are being established at medical centers across the country, bringing together multidisciplinary teams to provide a comprehensive treatment approach COVID-19 aftercare.

"The multidisciplinary approach catches what certain physicians would miss, so you get psychology, psychiatry, physical medicine, and rehabilitation," said Dr. G.

In some cases, a positive test result isn’t vital to get help, so Dr. G says be your own advocate.

"If you’re sitting there struggling with symptoms that you’re finding your health care professional is struggling to put them together, ask to investigate if this could be post-COVID-19 through some simple blood work testing," said Dr. G.

Antibody testing could show what’s been missed all along, that patients once had COVID and are now suffering from 'Long COVID.'

"It’s a breath of fresh air because it’s some understanding of why they are here and as one of my patients said, 'It’s not all in my head'," said Dr. G.

A physician referral is required for an appointment in the JH clinic. For more information about the requirements, click here.

Abby Isaacs at WMAR first reported this story.

While many people recover from COVID-19, others are finding symptoms that won’t go away. While researchers are working to find out what’s behind what some call "long COVID," some patients are eager to hear if hope lies in a vaccine.

Symptoms can include fatigue, shortness of breath, brain fog, gastrointestinal issues, and more, according to the NIH. The agency recently launched an initiative to study what it calls Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC).

RELATED: Patients, medical community focus on long-term impacts of COVID-19

Amanda Finley says she fell ill with COVID-19 twice, first early on in the pandemic and unable to get tested, and again in October. Like others, she found her symptoms lingered. She founded an online discussion group for others with similar experiences.

“The big thing for me was tachycardia,” she said.

Almost a year to the date when she got sick, she got vaccinated. But what took her by surprise was what happened next.

“My tachycardia has subsided, my shortness of breath that I had related to that has subsided. The brain fog, the fatigue, has subsided. And we had been telling our members for months the vaccines are not designed to treat symptoms. They’re preventative, so I was just sort of just taken aback,” she said.

Now she’s curious whether the COVID-19 vaccine had any impact, recognizing it’s only anecdotal at this point.

“I realized there’s something to this we need to take note and get in touch with researchers so we can figure out what this key is,” she said.

It’s a question researchers are just starting to look at.

“That’s very important, and again, I would say really unclear situation,” said Dr. Christian Bréchot, a professor of medicine at USF Health and president of the Global Virus Network.

He says more comprehensive studies are needed.

“For example, would it be possible 'long COVID' would be due to some virus reservoirs, that means visual persistence in some hidden site in the body you see and that the vaccine would be efficient against these reservoirs. But this we have no evidence for this it’s just a hypothesis,” he said.

One small study, not peer-reviewed, looked at the vaccine’s safety for patients with "long COVID," concluding it wasn’t associated with a worsening of symptoms.

But there are not many studies yet, and as Dr. Bréchot points out, it can be difficult to interpret.

“Now in addition to this they have provided some I would say preliminary evidence for a beneficial effect of the vaccine. But again these were not randomized, controlled, clinical trials and so I would say that for the efficacy of the vaccine the evidence is still insufficient,” he said. “It is only a suggestion, it’s a possibility, it’s obviously very important to follow up on this but we do not have conclusive evidence so far.”

The NIAID said more research is needed to understand how the COVID-19 vaccination may affect people who don’t return to full health after the virus. It said two studies may help, stating in part:

“The IMPACC study is following participants for up to 12 months after hospitalization for COVID-19 to assess how well they recover and characterize their immune responses. Another study [clinicaltrials.gov] is enrolling people who recovered from COVID-19 and a control group who never had COVID-19 and will follow participants for three years. While these studies are not supplying vaccines, some participants are being vaccinated as part of the general U.S. vaccine effort. Study researchers are capturing information on participant vaccination and any effects on symptoms.”

The organization, Survivor Corps., surveyed just over 900 of its members on long-term COVID symptoms post-vaccine. It said 45% reported no change, 42% reported improvement and 13% said symptoms worsened.

The anecdotal reports, though, are giving some dealing with symptoms hope.

“I am hopeful. I’m not counting on it,” said Vitas Martinenas.

He’s waiting to get his second dose as he battles "long COVID."

“If it helps a certain amount of people hopefully I’ll be one of the lucky ones, it’s no fun living like this so I’m sort of grasping at straws here,” he said.

Meanwhile, Delainne Bond is working to educate others in an online support group she founded and let them know they’re not alone.

“It’s just a really big gap in what people know, what the doctors know, what the patients expect, we’re all looking for a cure,” she said.

Bond doesn’t think she’s in a situation where the vaccine is improving her symptoms, but for her, it’s about preventing another infection. She said her symptoms have been under control with interventions, including a strict low histamine diet after finding she was more sensitive to allergens after her COVID-19 illness.

“The message I see over and over again is people feel hopeless they feel like their lives have been taken from them they’re never going to get it back,” she said.

This story was originally published by Haley Bull at WFTS.

"I was a healthy 30-year-old firefighter paramedic working out five to six days a week. And this is how COVID affected me," said Karyn Bishof, founder of the COVID-19 Longhauler Advocacy Project. 

Karyn Bishof was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March of 2020. She had a moderate case and was never hospitalized. But now, more than a year later, she says lingering symptoms are so bad she can no longer work.

"I'm still dealing with over 60 different symptoms," she said. "I've had a headache every single day at a level of seven out of 10 or higher... I don't sleep. I may be average, you know, 20 to 25 hours a week of sleep... my feet and my legs swell and turn purple."

Bishop is a long hauler — a group that experiences symptoms long after recovering from the coronavirus.

And public health experts warn long COVID is the next big health emergency in the wake of COVID-19. 

"It is a concerning problem because so many people have gotten sick that even if only a small fraction have a persistent disability or medical problems, that's still a lot of people in the U.S. and globally," said Dr. Jesse Goodman, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Georgetown University.

There's no official count of long haulers in the US. A recent CDC study found two-thirds of non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients went back to their doctors seeking relief from symptoms up to six months after contracting the virus. A new Stanford University study finds it’s even higher for those who were hospitalized.

In February, the NIH launched a $1.15 billion initiative to study and collect data on long COVID, its causes, and possible treatments. The four-year program is only in the beginning stages. 

"Ideally, this would have come many months earlier, and we have more of that data now," Goodman said. 

Democratic Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia has introduced a $90 million bipartisan bill. It would create a patient registry where long haulers could self-report their symptoms and treatments that have worked for them. And it would provide the CDC with funding to educate medical providers and the general public about long COVID.  

"Getting lots of dialogue and a sense of community with other people who suffer from long COVID can give people, first of all, sense that they're not crazy and a sense of hope and a sense of how the disease unfolds and what other people do to get better," Beyer said. 

It could also help bolster the case for continued financial aid as the country recovers from the pandemic.

"As we develop this much larger database of long COVID symptoms, it gives us a much better policy argument to extend unemployment benefits to the people that have long COVID," Beyer said. 

Those benefits are essential for long haulers like Bishof,  who says she has to spend most of her day in bed.

"If you're out of work, people are losing their homes, they're losing their cars, they're falling behind on bills and credit cards," Bishof said. "Changing the qualifications for some of these programs like food stamps or like Medicaid, allowing these people to obtain medical coverage and obtain at least the basic needs to provide for them and their families during this interim time is imperative."

Kellan Howell at Newsy first reported this story.