Covid is associated with increased risk for hearing loss in young adults.
A recent study published in the Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine journal reported that a
positive coronavirus diagnosis was associated with a more than threefold increase in
risk for subsequent hearing loss in young adults. Researchers examined electronic
hospital records of 6,716,879 young adults ages 20 to 39 and compared diagnoses of
hearing loss in those who tested positive for coronavirus with a PCR test to those who
did not, from the start of 2020 to the end of 2022. The incidence of hearing loss was
3.44 times higher for people who had covid than for those who did not, and 3.52 times
higher for those who experienced sudden sensorineural hearing loss. Even being fully
vaccinated with boosters did not decrease the risk for hearing loss following a
coronavirus infection.