In March 2023, an estimated 1.9 million people in the UK reported that they were experiencing long covid, representing 2.9% of the population. Of these, 1.3 million had symptoms that had lasted for more than a year and 762,000 had symptoms lasting for more than two years. Fatigue was the most common symptom (reported by 72% of those with long covid), followed by difficulty concentrating (51%), muscle ache (49%) and shortness of breath (48%).
Some groups of people are more affected than others. In this survey, the prevalence of long covid was higher for those with pre-existing health conditions than those without them. Long covid prevalence increased with age and level of socioeconomic deprivation and was slightly higher for women than men.