Scientists from Washington University in St. Louis found that vaccinated people who experience a breakthrough case of COVID-19 are at risk for developing long-haul symptoms, though they are better protected against some of the worst ones.
Compared to the unvaccinated, people who had COVID shots had a 15% lower risk of developing long COVID symptoms after a breakthrough infection.
Moreover, vaccination strongly reduced the risk that a person would suffer some of the most debilitating symptoms of long COVID.
For example, the vaccinated were 49% less likely to develop long-term lung problems and 56% less likely to have persistent blood clotting disorders, the researchers found.
Vaccines also reduced a person’s risk of death from a breakthrough infection by 34% compared to the unvaccinated.
The research is published in the journal Nature Medicine and was conducted by Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly et al.
In the study, the team analyzed health data on more than 13 million veterans provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
They compared the long-term symptoms of more than 113,000 unvaccinated COVID-19 patients to nearly 34,000 vaccinated people who experienced breakthrough infections between January and October 2021.
The team says this is the first study that really looks at breakthrough infections and long COVID.
The findings show that even though you’re vaccinated if you have a breakthrough infection, you can still have long COVID.
There are several theories about why COVID-19 might produce long-haul symptoms even in the vaccinated.
The spike protein that allows SARS-CoV-2 to infect cells interacts with a type of receptor that seems to be expressed almost ubiquitously on every human cell. That means the virus can spread anywhere in the body.
He said it might be that the body’s immune response to COVID-19, rather than the virus itself, damages organs and causes long-haul symptoms.
Yet another theory holds that even after a person fends off a COVID-19 infection, fragments of the virus continue to circulate through the body, causing chronic inflammation that leads to organ injury.
If you care about COVID, please read studies about the most effective face-mask practices to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and hemp compounds may help prevent COVID-19.
For more information about COVID, please see recent studies about treatment that may prevent COVID death and lung damage, and results showing CBD from cannabis may inhibit COVID-19 infection.
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