Patients in U.S. Florida find few options for Long COVID: report

People lounge on Daytona Beach, Florida, the United States, Sept. 7, 2020. (Photo by Alan Chin/Xinhua)

For COVID-19 survivors, rates of depression, anxiety and even suicide are higher than in the rest of the population.

NEW YORK, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- There are no Long COVID clinics in central Florida of the United States, which means patients are forced to reconcile with long drives to COVID-19 clinics around the state and even longer wait-lists, reported Spectrum News on Sunday.

"The long-haul COVID clinics out there, ours for example (are) swamped with patients," said Irene Estores, a physician who runs a Long COVID clinic in the state. "The patients have to wait."

"For some, arriving at a Long COVID clinic comes only after repeated fruitless attempts to find treatments elsewhere," the report noted.

Many Long COVID patients struggle with their mental health, said the report. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that for COVID-19 survivors, rates of depression, anxiety and even suicide are higher than in the rest of the population.

An estimated 7.5 percent of adults in the United States suffer from post-COVID conditions lasting more than three months. Despite broad public interest in the issue, treatments for the condition vary in effectiveness from person to person, and aren't widely available, it added.