A new study has found that patients vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus were less likely to experience symptoms of post-COVID illness or long-term COVID-19.
Researchers evaluated the link between vaccinations and long-term COVID symptoms by surveying individuals in eight major health care systems in the United States.
The study, Published Wednesday in Nature Communications, used positive COVID tests among 161,531 vaccinated and 161,531 unvaccinated individuals from March 2021 to February 2022. Of vaccinated patients, 96.7 percent had two doses of a COVID vaccine.
The authors followed the patients for a period of 151 days and found that the percentage of people with post-COVID conditions was significantly lower among vaccinated people.
Post-COVID conditions were described as fatigue, loss of taste or smell, shortness of breath, cough, headache, pain and “a range of moderate to severe sequelae affecting the cardiovascular, pulmonary, renal, endocrine and neurological systems.”
An exact definition has yet to be established due to the diverse and 'non-specific clinical presentation' of symptoms.
Ultimately, researchers found that if individuals were vaccinated before contracting the infection, there was a reduced risk of long-term COVID outcomes and consequences from the virus, although the study found that vaccinated people had a slightly higher risk of mental illness during the study period.
A separate study found that long-term COVID symptoms could last as long as two years in some patients.
The study follows a push from many senators who said the government should become more involved in long COVID research and provide Americans with support for their lingering symptoms.
