More than one in five adults in the US could suffer from long Covid and vaccines offer limited protection against it, two major studies released this week found.
Given the potential severity of long Covid symptoms, which can also affect people who had only mild infections, even 15% protection from vaccines against the worst symptoms is beneficial, the researchers suggest.
The peer-reviewed studies flag why nobody should try to get infected with the virus to gain immunity — given the risks of not only Covid-19, but also severe long Covid.
Medicine professor Francois Venter, director of the Wits Ezintsha research group, said they are doing long Covid research. “We are taking patients who had Covid in 2020, pre-vaccination, at different levels of severity and comparing them to people who were vaccinated in clinical trials before the first wave.”
Even vaccinated people who had “mild breakthrough Covid-19 infections can experience debilitating, lingering symptoms that affect the heart, brain, lungs and other parts of the body”, the research from Washington University School of Medicine, published in Nature Medicine, showed.
The new CDC study, based on the medical records of almost two million people, revealed that one in five Covid-19 survivors aged 18 to 64 and one in four survivors older than 65, had experienced conditions that “might be attributable to previous Covid”.
Mixed martial arts practitioner, boxing instructor and literary agent Savannah Brooks is one of the people who have taken to Twitter, after the release of the CDC report, to alert people to the severe impact of long Covid and urge them to be safe.
As of today I ~officially~ have long COVID (as recognized by the CDC), so I wanna take a second to explain what’s happening. To set the stage: I’m 30, I’ve been an athlete my entire life, and I used to be extremely healthy, minus some pesky seasonal allergies. My resting heart 1/
— Savannah Brooks (on medical leave) (@SBLitAgent) May 22, 2022
“I’m 30, I’ve been an athlete my entire life and I used to be extremely healthy, minus some pesky seasonal allergies ... Right now, I can maybe walk a handful of blocks before passing out ... My post-Covid doctor told me that in about 30% of cases around the country they are seeing patients ... who are exhausted all the time ... feel pain more intensely ...
“At one point in my life I literally ran the mile up the switchback wall of the Grand Canyon, and now I can’t risk standing in the jetway to board a plane ...
“Getting vaxxed and boosted is critical — but so is masking. Please make safe choices,” she writes, sharing a photo of her wheelchair and “wheelchair pusher [and occasional personal carrier]”.
Lung and blood-clotting disorders (of long Covid), declined about 49% and 56%, respectively, among those who were vaccinated
— Clinical epidemiologist Dr Ziyad Al-Aly
The Nature Medicine paper showed that Covid-19 jabs reduced the risk of death by 34% and the risk of long Covid by 15%, based on an analysis of 13m US veterans’ health records. The study was conducted before Omicron, from January to October 2021.
The vaccines worked best at blocking some of the worst long Covid symptoms, “lung and blood-clotting disorders, which declined about 49% and 56%, respectively, among those who were vaccinated”, the results indicate.
Besides the heart, brain and lungs, long Covid symptoms included “disorders involving the kidneys, blood clotting, mental health, metabolism and the gastrointestinal and musculoskeletal systems”, said first author and clinical epidemiologist Dr Ziyad Al-Aly.
About 8% to 12% of vaccinated people with breakthrough infections may develop long Covid, he added.
Al-Aly said: “Our current approach will likely leave a large number of people with chronic and potentially disabling conditions that have no treatments. This will not only affect people’s health, but their ability to work, life expectancy, economic productivity and societal wellbeing.”
University of Free State medical virologist Prof Felicity Burt is among the clinicians who have advised people to avoid getting infected with Covid-19 on purpose, given the risks of long Covid.
At least 520-million people worldwide have had Covid-19 since the pandemic started — 11.7-million cases have been reported in Africa, of which roughly a third were reported in SA (3.9-million cases) — and globally more than six million people have died.
“Getting Covid-19, even among vaccinated people, seems almost unavoidable nowadays,” said Al-Aly, calling for “additional layers of protection” against the virus, such as powerful nasal vaccines or other types of vaccines or drugs.
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