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Speaker 1: COVID numbers here in South Australia. COVID cases have fallen

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Speaker 1: right away, two hundred odd last week reported. But that's

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Speaker 1: the issue reported. I suspect there's probably many more. Certainly

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Speaker 1: a lot of flucases around at the moment. But one

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Speaker 1: thing we haven't talked about in quite some time is

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Speaker 1: long COVID. It's still around, still a thing. There's a

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Speaker 1: risk calculator that's been developed now by the UNI of

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Speaker 1: Queensland to develop a risk calculator for COVID nineteen to

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Speaker 1: determine the risk of someone developing long COVID. From Flinders UNI,

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Speaker 1: they've been involved as well, Associate Professor John Litt, co

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Speaker 1: lead on the calculator project and John is on the line.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Matthew. One like correction. It's actually

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Speaker 2: been led by four universities, lenders in the University of

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Speaker 2: Queensland YEP, also the University of Sydney and the queens

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Speaker 2: Down University of Technology, so it's been a really cooperative venture.

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Speaker 2: So what we've developed is the thing called current BOOKRACLE

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Speaker 2: is short for a COVID Risk Calculator and what we

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Speaker 2: wanted to do is be able to present information to

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Speaker 2: people about the risks and benefits of the vaccine and

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Speaker 2: the risks and if there are only benefits from having

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Speaker 2: the disease. We've had concerns in the past about blood

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Speaker 2: plots with the astrazanica vaccine and about market artisan's fizo

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Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people now think COVID's

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Speaker 2: gone away, but we really haven't paid enough attention to

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Speaker 2: long COVID, and probably five hundred thousand Australians conservatives have

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Speaker 2: had long COVID. So long COVID is kind of diagnosed

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Speaker 2: as a set of symptoms that can't be explained by

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Speaker 2: other factors that have persisted for at least three months

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Speaker 2: after about of COVID, And so we know that something

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Speaker 2: like five to ten percent of people who've had COVID

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Speaker 2: will get long COVID, and it lasts in about fifty

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Speaker 2: percent of the people. It lasts up to four months,

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Speaker 2: but that means more than fifty it's going to last

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Speaker 2: a lot longer. One of the ladies I was talking

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Speaker 2: to yesterday, who's a professional person, she had it for

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Speaker 2: two years and she's only back to eighty five percent

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Speaker 2: and she was a very fit, healthy person. So the

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Speaker 2: long COVID calculator is a free thing, is independent, it's

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Speaker 2: independent of vaccine manufacturers. It really allows a person to

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Speaker 2: put their age. There's six how many times they've had

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Speaker 2: COVID and how many vaccines they've had, and wea they've

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Speaker 2: had one of a range of chronic conditions and it

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Speaker 2: will give you an estimate. Now, and this is an

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Speaker 2: average estimate. We can't absolutely personalize it to you, but

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Speaker 2: it'll give you an estimate of your likelihood of getting

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Speaker 2: a long term symptom for at least six months or

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Speaker 2: ending up in hospital ICU from COVID. And if you

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Speaker 2: had a vaccine, how that risk would be reduced. And

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Speaker 2: for those people that are eligible for anti virals, the

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Speaker 2: risk gets reduced even further. But that group is very restricted,

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Speaker 2: usually to older people and people with a range of

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Speaker 2: no significant conditions. So it's a chance to do that.

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Speaker 2: We've got a video on that if people have trouble

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Speaker 2: explaining the grass and one of our team from the

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Speaker 2: University of Sydney to health literacy experts, so we've tried

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Speaker 2: to put the language and it would make sense for people.

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Speaker 1: What about the symptoms, John, when you say symptoms last

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Speaker 1: for three months? I imagine that's things like lethar g

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Speaker 1: maybe a cough that sticks around, or is there something unexpected.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so you could. The challenge we've got is there

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Speaker 2: about up to two hundred different types of symptoms being documented.

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Speaker 2: What we've done is group them. So we've said any

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Speaker 2: symptom lasting six months, and then we've said kind of

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Speaker 2: neurological symptoms like brain fog. We've said sort of cardiovascular

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Speaker 2: respiratory things like getting out of breath or your exercise

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Speaker 2: tolerance being limited. And there are things there's metabolic symptoms

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Speaker 2: as well, people's inability to smell. So we've just categorized

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Speaker 2: them in systems because otherwise it become really complicated. So

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Speaker 2: someone's particularly worried about things like brain fog, then you

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Speaker 2: can look at the the central nervous system or brain one.

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Speaker 2: So watch the likelihood of a symptom lasting for six

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Speaker 2: months that affecting your brain in some way.

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Speaker 1: And this is the thing with COVID. It can get

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Speaker 1: you in so many different ways as opposed to say

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Speaker 1: a cold or the flu.

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Speaker 2: That's right, I mean it's not. I think people don't

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Speaker 2: entirely understand. It is not the same as like flu

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Speaker 2: or other viruses that it affects pretty well every system

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Speaker 2: in the body, so when they go looking for things

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Speaker 2: there and what's worrying is that some of the some

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Speaker 2: of these underlying molecular things have been shown still to

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Speaker 2: be present two years after the person's had long COVID,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of times have recovered. But when I

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Speaker 2: was talking to a women yesterday in the forty she

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Speaker 2: had had it for eighty months. You got really a

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Speaker 2: lot better doing all the things that were instructed by

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Speaker 2: the long COVID clinic in Melbourne. But then she had

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Speaker 2: a relap, an event happened, and then she took she

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Speaker 2: went backwards for three months and took a long time

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Speaker 2: to get back to that. So that's the risk. And

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Speaker 2: I think one of the take I missed this for

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Speaker 2: us is that every time you get COVID, it's your

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Speaker 2: risk of long COVID increases, so that if you had

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Speaker 2: it once you think I'm not going to get it.

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Speaker 2: Every repeat infection increases the risk. And reassuringly, if you

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Speaker 2: have at least a primary course and at least one

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Speaker 2: booster and ideally won in the last six to twelve months,

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Speaker 2: that reduces your risk of long COVID, even more so

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Speaker 2: when the first about of COVID came around about ten

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Speaker 2: per cent of people getting long COVID under omichromates around

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Speaker 2: again three to five percent. But that risk is reduced

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Speaker 2: by having a booster and getting up to date with

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Speaker 2: your shop.

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Speaker 1: I imagine by now, And the talk at the time

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Speaker 1: was eventually we're all going to have COVID at some stage,

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Speaker 1: and probably for the majority of us, we've had it

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Speaker 1: at least once, and maybe even twice. I've had it

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Speaker 1: twice now that I'm aware of, and the second time.

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Speaker 1: The first time was relatively mild. It was just lethargy,

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Speaker 1: primarily in a calf. The second time was similar, but

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Speaker 1: it didn't last as long. And as far as I'm aware,

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Speaker 1: I haven't had it a third time. Unless it's been

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Speaker 1: so mild, I haven't noticed. But we don't really understand

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Speaker 1: long COVID very well, do we. This clinic in Melbourne

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Speaker 1: obviously doing its work, but there's a lot more to

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Speaker 1: learn about this, and.

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Speaker 2: There are a lot of other clinics doing it, and

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Speaker 2: so I think the thing that's concerning is we can't

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Speaker 2: predict whether you're going to get long COVID, so there

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Speaker 2: are some risk factors that increase it. So if your female,

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Speaker 2: we know they get more cases. If you've got underlying

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Speaker 2: health conditions like overweight, diabetes, ASKMA, high blood pressure, if

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Speaker 2: you're under a stressful sort of job, or react to

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Speaker 2: stress a lot, if you had a more spear infection,

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Speaker 2: And we know that people that are more social disadvantage

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Speaker 2: seem to be higher. Impactly, it's just like heart disease.

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Speaker 2: We can run up all the risks of cardect disease.

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Speaker 2: I've seen people who have had a heart attack. You've

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Speaker 2: got no risk factors, so it's a bit unpredictable. And

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Speaker 2: the other problem is we don't have a simple treatment.

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Speaker 2: So you know, with your diabetes, we can give you

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Speaker 2: a range of medications to sustain to the red less

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Speaker 2: than you risk of complications. With long COVID, we can

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Speaker 2: largely treat symptoms we haven't had. We're still trying to

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Speaker 2: work out how we can actually all to how long

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Speaker 2: people have long COVID for so without uncertainty and the

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Speaker 2: fact that we know that the vaccines are really safe.

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Speaker 2: I mean, people are worried about things. But if you

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Speaker 2: take my card artists in young men with the fires

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Speaker 2: of vaccine, they afford to six times more likely to

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Speaker 2: get my card artists from COVID than they are from

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Speaker 2: a MR and a vaccine, and the my chard artists

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Speaker 2: they get from COVID is a lot worse than the

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Speaker 2: one they get from the vaccine. So I think we

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Speaker 2: have very good evidence about the safety. I know people

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Speaker 2: don't worry about it, but if you want to reduce

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Speaker 2: your risk of a condition, where you could the state

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Speaker 2: I took yesterday, she was off work for nearly nearly

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Speaker 2: two years. She had to move into her mother's to

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Speaker 2: look after because she couldn't get out of the bed

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Speaker 2: and couldn't actually make her own meals, and she was

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Speaker 2: there for eleven months, goodness me, and as a result

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Speaker 2: of that her marriage broke down. Now I've got two

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Speaker 2: young children, Dren, and still at about eighty five percent

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Speaker 2: of her capacity. So you don't know that. If that's

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Speaker 2: the five percent chance, I would say, I don't want

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Speaker 2: to take it. Are you're going to fly with an airline,

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Speaker 2: it says I, and I've got a five percent chance

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Speaker 2: of coming down between Melbourne ad least. No, you want

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Speaker 2: one that's got a really high safety record, and anything

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Speaker 2: you can do to increase that you'll take them. So

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Speaker 2: that five percent might not seem very high, but if

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Speaker 2: it means it could be two years out of your life,

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Speaker 2: well I would I'd rather avoid that absolutely.

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Speaker 1: So those cases are probably at the extreme end. But

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Speaker 1: the more often you have coured, the more the chance increases.

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Speaker 1: Is that right?

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Speaker 2: The rest increase and we can't we can't predict the severity.

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Speaker 2: We can only say, just like with heart attacks, we

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Speaker 2: can say, Okay, if you've got a smoker, you're much

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Speaker 2: more likely to have that, and all of those things

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Speaker 2: can compound it, and some of those you can't change.

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Speaker 2: You can't change your gender, you can't change some of

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Speaker 2: the other things, whether you've got a high blood pressure

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Speaker 2: or whatever. Once you've got it, you've got it. So

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Speaker 2: I think the calculator will allow you to work out

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Speaker 2: how much the risk will be reduced and try to

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Speaker 2: help people come to a decision about should they get

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Speaker 2: a booster or not. And I guess the thing that

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Speaker 2: worries us particularly is that only four per cent of

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Speaker 2: the Australian population eighteen to sixty four have actually had

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Speaker 2: a COVID booster in the last six months. If you

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Speaker 2: look at the over seventy five only forty percent. So

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Speaker 2: the majority of people over seventy five have not had

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Speaker 2: a booster. And if you look at my age range,

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Speaker 2: sixty five to seventy four, one in four, so we've

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Speaker 2: got a lot of room for proven So yees, COVID

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Speaker 2: may be around with us. We can't necessarily change that,

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Speaker 2: but we can do a lot to protect ourselves from

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Speaker 2: wearing an appropriate mask when we're a crowded environment, keeping

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Speaker 2: up to date with our boosters, getting anti virals if

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Speaker 2: we're you know, if we are cool for that. Although

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Speaker 2: we actually now know that met Foreman can reduce the

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Speaker 2: risk of long COVID, it has very little impact on

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Speaker 2: the risk of COVID. But getting met Foreman in a

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Speaker 2: specific dose regime and you can talk to your GP

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Speaker 2: about that if you get that within three days of

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Speaker 2: starting COVID, and that reduces your risk of long COVID,

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Speaker 2: but it doesn't seem to affect the symptoms and the

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Speaker 2: duration of actual COVID.

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Speaker 1: Okay, if people want to try out the calculator, give

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Speaker 1: it a run. Where do they find it in?

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Speaker 2: Then if you're putting curricle c cl curricle into the website, yep,

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Speaker 2: it'll come up on the website. It's hosted by the

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Speaker 2: Immunization Coalition, which is a not for profit group that

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Speaker 2: sponsors vaccines with various groups and provides independent advice. So

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Speaker 2: curracles you put it in there and come up COVID

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Speaker 2: Risk Calculator and it's anonymous. We don't keep people's data.

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Speaker 2: They can just fill it in and there's a feedback

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Speaker 2: button there if they want to make a comment about it.

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Speaker 1: All right, terrific. Appreciate the information, John.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, you're welcome.

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Speaker 1: Associate Professor John Lipp from Flinder's UNI