COVID-19's Long-Term Mortality Impact on Veterans and Non-COVID Patients Revealed

A retrospective cohort study of 208,061 Veterans infected with COVID-19 and 1,037,423 matched uninfected comparators found that COVID-19 survivors had no clinically significant excess hazard of death compared to comparators who survived at least 6 months after infection. The risk of excess death was highest in the first 90 days after infection but decreased over time, with no excess mortality observed after 180 days. These findings suggest that efforts should focus on addressing the needs of individual survivors rather than improving survival outcomes.