Because of the complexity of COVID-19 being a disease with immediate, short-term, and long-term implications, we still have several questions unanswered. One of such implications of COVID-19 is “Long-COVID” - a condition with varieties of symptoms including shortness of breath, fatigue, and “brain fog” along with an additional wide array of debilitating problems in the heart, brain, lungs, gut, and other organs.
Unfortunately, a big study using more than 13 million people showed that vaccines might do just a little for ‘Long-COVID’.
The study found that vaccination seemed to reduce the likelihood of ‘Long-COVID’ in people who had been infected by only about 15%. When they compared the symptoms such as brain fog and fatigue in vaccinated and unvaccinated people for up to six months after they tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, there was no difference in type or severity of symptoms between those who had been vaccinated and not vaccinated.
Since we have more than 83 million COVID-19 infections in the US, even a small fraction getting ‘Long-COVID’ is a lot. This finding has alerted public health professionals to rethink the implementation of measures like mask mandates and social-distancing restrictions, particularly for those with compromised immune systems.