Vaccines Reduce Risk of Long Covid by Just 15 Percent, Study Finds
- Salon, June 1, 2022. Ed.
- While existing vaccines are great for preventing serious cases, they aren't as good at preventing long Covid. -
One of the scariest consequences of contracting COVID-19 is the aftermath. Long Covid, a neologism that refers to long-term side effects which appear after the virus has cleared one's body, occurs in at least 10 % of patients who contract COVID-19. And while symptoms vary, long Covid can leave people with devastating and debilitating side effects. Internal tremors and vibrations, depression, or a lasting loss of taste and smell are all possible symptoms of long Covid, or post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection as it is formally known.
While not much is known about why some people get long Covid and others don't, a growing body of research suggests that people who are vaccinated against COVID-19 are slightly less likely to develop long-term COVID-19 symptoms. Perhaps surprisingly, the degree to which the risk of long Covid is reduced in the vaccinated is not great. That's according to a new study published in * Nature Medicine, which is believed to be the largest peer-reviewed study on long Covid and breakthrough COVID-19 cases based in the U.S. Their findings are particularly surprising given how much vaccines appear to protect against serious COVID-19 cases; indeed, those who are vaccinated and who have a breakthrough case of COVID typically have mild cases.
According to the study, which analyzed the medical records of 33,940 people who experienced breakthrough infections after vaccination, there was only a 15 % reduced risk of the vaccinated getting long Covid (compared to unvaccinated people) six months after their initial diagnosis of COVID-19. For some of the most debilitating symptoms, there was no difference in risk; these include neurologic issues, cardiometabolic disease, fatigue and respiratory issues. Patients in the study either had two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Notably, the study didn't cover the time period in which the omicron variant and its subvariants have circulated.
"People with breakthrough infections can still get long Covid, and guess what? The features of long Covid in these patients were very, very similar to the features of long Covid in unvaccinated individuals," Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, the study's senior investigator and Chief of Research and Development at the VA St. Louis healthcare system, told Salon. "Some of the long Covid manifestations that we were seeing in breakthrough infections were very similar, qualitatively, [in] clinical features to the long Covid that we see in unvaccinated individuals." The greatest benefit of the COVID-19 vaccine in long Covid patients appeared to be in symptoms such as lung complications and a reduction in blood clotting. The risk of long Covid in vaccinated people was slightly higher for those who were vaccinated and immunocompromised — 17 %...
- Read More, https://www.salon.com/2022/06/01/vaccines-reduce-risk-of-long-by-just-15-percent-study-finds/
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* Nature Medicine: 'Long COVID after breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection,' May 25, 2022,
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01840-0
- A medical worker monitors the vitals of an intubated patient at the COVID-19 coronavirus ward of Dura Governmental Hospital in the town of Dura on the outskirts of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Feb. 5, 2022.
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