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As the pandemic enters its third year, the protracted Covid has emerged as an increasingly important concern. And many people wonder if getting the Covid vaccine can reduce their chances of developing long-term symptoms.

What does the research show so far?

The jury is out yet, but a growing number of studies are suggesting that receiving a Covid vaccine may reduce – although not eliminate – the long-term risk of symptoms.

UK Health Safety Agency, a analysis From eight studies published on the topic before mid-January. He reported that six of the studies found that vaccinated people infected with the coronavirus were less likely to develop long-term Covid symptoms than unvaccinated patients. The remaining two studies found that vaccination did not definitively reduce the chances of developing long-term Covid.

How much protection can vaccines provide, according to studies that have found benefit?

Some study results offer substantial protection, while others offer only a slight benefit.

one great work A portion of the electronic records of patients at the U.S. Veterans Health Administration found that vaccinated Covid patients had only a 13 percent lower risk of showing symptoms six months later than unvaccinated patients.

Two studies in the UK found a greater effect. one to work Based on patient reports via a phone app, nearly 1.2 million patients found the risk of persistence of symptoms to be 50 percent lower in vaccinated patients. AnotherBased on a survey of nearly 6,000 patients who did not undergo peer review, they found a 41 percent lower risk.

A to work Percentage of patients in the US found a greater benefit by Arcadia, a health data company, and the Covid Patient Recovery Alliance, a collaboration of leaders with health expertise in the government and private sectors. The study, which did not undergo peer-review, analyzed records of nearly 240,000 patients infected with the coronavirus through May 2021 and found that one in seven to one in ten received even one dose of the Covid vaccine prior to infection. He is likely to report two or more symptoms of prolonged Covid after 12 to 20 weeks. This study also found that people who received their first dose of vaccine after contracting the coronavirus were less likely to develop long-term Covid than those who remained unvaccinated, and the sooner they were vaccinated after infection, the lower their long-term risk of symptoms.

A study in israelThrough surveys, which had not undergone peer review, it found that people who received two doses of the vaccine had a 54 percent to 82 percent lower risk of having seven of the 10 most common long-term symptoms than unvaccinated patients. According to the study, people in the general population who have never been infected with Covid are generally not more likely to report symptoms such as headaches, muscle pain and other problems. (The authors said they could not confirm whether patients were vaccinated before or after they contracted Covid, but said that due to Israel’s vaccination policy, most people who received two doses of the vaccine were likely to have been infected some time after they were infected with the coronavirus.)

In veterans’ workIn addition, the researchers, who have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed publication, compared approximately 16,000 patients who were vaccinated with approximately 48,000 who were not vaccinated at the time of contracting Covid-19. One of the authors, VA St. Louis Health System, chief of research and development, Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly and a scientist, Dr. clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. He said other symptoms showed “very little risk reduction” from vaccines.

Dr. “The general message is that vaccines reduce, but do not eliminate, the long-term risk of Covid,” Al-Aly said, adding that “relying on a vaccine as a single mitigation strategy is completely inadequate. It’s like fighting with a shield that only partially works.”

But what about studies that don’t show any benefit?

In an analysis From the electronic medical records of patients in the United States, researchers in the United Kingdom compared nearly 10,000 people who had received the Covid vaccine to a similar number of people who were not vaccinated against the coronavirus but received the flu vaccine – an effort to limit what could be considered vaccine-hesitant or generally less healthy in the study. the number of people with the behavior.

The study found that having a coronavirus vaccine before being infected did not reduce the risk of most symptoms of long-term Covid. The authors made some suggestions from the data that vaccinated people may be at lower risk for long-term symptoms such as abnormal breathing and cognitive problems, but these results were not statistically conclusive.

Because their data was based on electronic health records, the study may have only captured patients with the most severe symptoms, rather than a wider range of patients who did not seek medical attention for their symptoms, the researchers said.

Why is the research contradictory?

One reason for this is the differences in the studies themselves. Not all researchers defined long-term Covid in the same way, measured the same symptoms, or followed patients for the same amount of time. For example, some studies recorded symptoms that persisted for at least 28 days after infection, while others measured symptoms people experienced six months later. Studies based on patient questionnaires may yield very different results than those based on electronic medical records. And some studies didn’t have very diverse populations. The patients in the veterans’ study, for example, were mostly elderly, white, and male.

Are the results different for different coronavirus variants?

Most of the published data followed patients infected early in the pandemic. Some recently published data included people infected with the highly contagious Delta variant, but it’s still too early for studies on vaccines and the long Covid involving the Omicron variant. It is also too early for studies evaluating the long-term effect of boosters on Covid.

Is there anything scientists can definitively conclude?

Yes. Vaccines, with all variants known so far, are very effective in preventing people from getting seriously ill from the infection. And many studies have found that Covid patients who are sick enough to be hospitalized are more likely to have persistent health problems. Therefore, vaccines should keep people out of the hospital, reducing the likelihood of such long-term post-Covid cases.

Still, many people with long-term Covid had mild or even asymptomatic initial infections, and the evidence is not yet conclusive, although some studies suggest the vaccines have the potential to relieve long-term symptoms.

Vaccines offer some protection against getting infected initially – and avoiding infection is, of course, the surest way to prevent long-term Covid.

Does the vaccine brand make a difference in potential protection against long-term Covid?

So far, studies have not found that different vaccines have different effects on long-term symptoms.

What are the possible scientific reasons why vaccines may provide long-term protection against Covid?

Scientists say the cause of prolonged Covid is still unclear and different symptoms may have different underlying causes in different patients. Some believe the condition may be related to remnants of the virus or genetic material left over after the initial infection subsided. Another theory is that ongoing problems are related to inflammation or blood circulation issues triggered by an overactive immune response that doesn’t turn off.

Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale, told If the antibodies produced by the vaccines remove these residues, the vaccines may provide lasting relief for people whose symptoms are caused by the remains of the virus.

But in people whose symptoms may be caused by a post-viral response that resembles an autoimmune disease, the vaccines may only help temporarily, and problems such as fatigue may reappear, he said.

Can you get help getting vaccinated if you already have long-term Covid?

When vaccines were first introduced, some patients with long-term covid They found that symptoms such as brain fog, joint pain, shortness of breath and fatigue improved after vaccination. Still, many people experienced no change in their symptoms after vaccination, and a small percentage said they felt worse.

a study by Office of National Statistics In the UK, people aged 18 to 69 who reported their symptoms between February and September 2021 were found to be 13 percent less likely to report prolonged Covid symptoms with the first dose of vaccine. The study found that a second dose further reduced rates by 9 percent.

recently analysis The UK Health Safety Agency evaluated this study and seven others who examined whether vaccinating long-term Covid-19 patients affected their symptoms. In many of these studies, she found that more people with long-term Covid patients reported improvement in their symptoms at some point after being vaccinated. However, some people also reported worsening of symptoms, and in many studies, most people said their symptoms did not change.

The institution noted that the definition of long-term Covid varies greatly between studies and because all studies are observational, changes in symptoms may be due to factors other than the vaccine.