LAUSR

(cid:129) Mounting evidence indicates that long COVID may lead to a wide range of post-acute outcomes, including diabetes. The present study 1 examined the post-acute risk and burden of incident diabetes in people who survived the fi rst 30 days of SARS-CoV-2 infection. (cid:129) The national healthcare databases from the United States Veterans Health Administration (VHA) system were employed to build a cohort of 181 280 participants who had a positive COVID-19 test between March 2020 and September 2021. Two controls groups with no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection were included in the study: a contemporary control ( n = 4 118 441) that enrolled participants between March 2020 and September 2021; and a historical control ( n = 4 286 911) that enrolled participants between March 2018 and September 2019. All participants were free of diabetes before cohort entry and were followed up for a median of 352 days. The association of COVID-19 with new-onset diabetes was expressed by two measures of risk: hazard ratio (HR) and burden per 1000 people at 12 months. (cid:129) Compared with the contemporary control group, people with COVID-19 had an increased risk [HR, 1.40; 95% con fi dence interval (CI), 1.36 – 1.44] and excess burden (13.5; 95% CI, 12.1 – 14.8 per 1000 people at 12 months) of incident diabetes; and an increased risk (1.85; 1.78 – 1.92) and excess burden (12.4; 11.4 – 13.4) of incident antihyperglycaemic medication use. The risk of a composite endpoint of incident diabetes or antihyperglycaemic use was also increased in COVID-19