Long COVID, Non-COVID19 Excess Deaths, and Post-Pandemic Cardiovascular Disease Risks: Mechanistic Links and Intervention Opportunities Mechanistic Links and Intervention Opportunities

Abstract

Persistent non-COVID19 excess mortality is a major post-pandemic health crisis without clear explanation. In current review, the hypothesis of Long COVID’s causal link to the non-COVID19 excess mortality was studied by applying time-lag correlation analysis between the excess death with COVID19 and the excess death without COVID19 in Australia between Jan 2020 and Mar 2023, which revealed a remarkable correlation that coincided with the disease severity of the corresponding variants including Delta, Omicron BA.1-BA.3, and Omicron BA.4-BA.5 waves. Based on the correlating epidemiological findings, known immunity-mediated pathologies of Long COVID such as endothelial damage, thrombosis, and bleeding were explored in contemplating acute coronary syndrome as a precipitating mechanism of the non-COVID19 excess death. The identified mechanistic linkage of non-COVID19 excess mortality to Long COVID paves ways for its countermeasures. Additional measures of using nasal hygiene products to curb the airborne infection risks, reserved physical exercise in the months after the recovery of COVID19, closer management of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and diabetic risk factors, and root-level Long COVID treatments tailored to treating the dysfunctional immunity around macrophages and neutrophils are proposed to reduce the non-COVID19 excess deaths.