NA new U.S. study on Long COVID-19 has provided fresh evidence of the possibility that this can occur even in cases of breakthrough infection. It also shows that elderly adults are at greater risk for long-term consequences.
An estimated one-third of the veterans who developed breakthrough infections in their service showed symptoms of Long COVID, according to a Wednesday published study.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reported that 1 out of 4 people 65 and over had at least one Long COVID-related health issue up to 1 year after their initial coronavirus infections. This compares with 1 in 5 for younger adults.
The long COVID describes any symptoms which persist, recur and first occur at least one month after the coronavirus infection. This can be a sign of fatigue or blood clots and it may affect any part of your body.
Coronavirus vaccines, which help to prevent serious infections in the beginning and provide protection from long-term COVID are effective. However, mounting evidence shows that this is not true as far as scientists initially thought.
Published in the Veterans Study Nature MedicineWe reviewed the medical records of 60-year-old white veterans. There were almost three million vaccines for the veterans who had received them last October, out of 13 million.
Learn More According to CDC, Lingering conditions are a common condition in at least 20% of COVID-19-infected people.
About 1 percent, or 34,000, experienced breakthrough infections. Ziyad Al-Aly (lead author) noted that this was before Omicron, a highly contagious variant of Omicron appeared at the close of the year. She also stated that there has been an increase in breakthrough infections.
Breakthrough infections and Long COVID symptoms were more common among those who had received Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot compared with two doses of either Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. Whether any had received booster shots is not known; the first booster wasn’t OK’d in the U.S. until late September.
Surprisingly, 32% of those infected with long COVID had symptoms for up to six months. That’s compared with 36% of unvaccinated veterans who had been infected and developed Long COVID.
Vaccination reduced the chances for any Long COVID symptoms by a “modest” 15%,” although it cut the risk in half for lingering respiratory or clotting problems, said Al-Aly, a researcher with Washington University and the Veterans Affairs health system in St. Louis. This included persistent shortness or cough, blood clots in the lungs and veins in your legs.
Kristin Englund (infectious disease expert) runs a Cleveland Clinic center for Long COVID patient. Nature MedicineHer clinic’s experience mirrors her study. There are long COVID patients who have been vaccinated, and those who received boosters.
“As we have no clear treatments for Long COVID, it is important for everyone to get vaccinated and use other proven methods of prevention such as masking and social distancing in order to prevent infections with COVID and thus Long COVID,’’ Englund said.
The CDC released Tuesday’s report that used records from almost 2,000,000 Americans between March 2020 and November 2019. The report included data on 353,000 COVID-19-affected individuals. To determine whether patients developed 26 conditions related to Long COVID, they were followed up for up to one year.
People with COVID had a higher chance of developing at least one condition than adults who did not have COVID. The risks for people 65 years and over were the greatest. We did not include information on race, vaccinations and sex.
Most common were breathing problems and muscular aches.
Older adults’ risks were higher for certain conditions, including strokes, brain fog, kidney failure, and mental health problems. The findings are worrisome because those conditions can hasten older adults’ needs for long-term care, the report authors said.
They stressed that routine assessment of all COVID patients “is critical to reduce the incidence” of Long COVID.
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