The data confirms the large body of research that shows vaccination greatly reduces the risk of death or serious illness. But there was more ambiguity regarding long covid.
Six months after their initial diagnosis of covid, people in the study who were vaccinated had only a slightly reduced risk of getting long covid — 15 percent overall. The greatest benefit appeared to be in reducing blood clotting and lung complications. But there was no difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated when it came to longer-term risks of neurological issues, gastrointestinal symptoms, kidney failure and other conditions.
“This was disappointing,” said Ziyad Al-Aly, lead author and chief of research and development service at VA Saint Louis Health Care System. “I was hoping to see that vaccines offer more protection, especially given that vaccines are our only line of defense nowadays.”
“Long covid” refers to the constellation of symptoms that many people have reported months after their initial infections. Early in the pandemic, some patients who complained of lingering symptoms were dismissed by physicians who thought the manifestations might be psychological. But the condition has since become a major concern for the medical community.
The World Health Organization has defined post-covid syndrome as symptoms that last for at least two months and cannot be explained by alternate diagnoses. It cited evidence suggesting that as many as 20 percent of the half-billion people worldwide estimated to be infected with coronavirus may experience mid- and long-term effects.
This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new estimates of the syndrome’s toll in the United States, suggesting it affects one in five adults younger than 65 who had covid, and one in four of those aged 65 and older. People in both age groups had twice the risk of uninfected people of developing respiratory symptoms and lung problems, including pulmonary embolism, the CDC found. Those in the older age group were at greater risk of developing kidney failure, Type 2 diabetes, neurological conditions and mental health issues.
The Veterans Affairs study, believed to be the largest peer-reviewed analysis in the United States on long covid based on medical records, looked at patients who either had two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer—BioNTech vaccines, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. It did not assess the impact of booster shots. While the study population contained a wide range of ages and racial and ethnic backgrounds, it did skew older, Whiter and more male than the United States as a whole.
The VA study also had no way to tell how different variants may change the risk of long covid. These breakthrough infections, for example, took place at a time when alpha, delta and prior variants were at high levels in the United States. It does not cover the period when the omicron variant and its subvariants began circulating in late 2021.
The findings add to the debate surrounding similar analyses trickling out…
Read More: Coronavirus vaccines may not prevent many symptoms of long covid, study suggests
