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Covid

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Does anyone know how the vaccines affect chance of getting long covid?

8 replies

WhereDidYouGetThatHat · 25/03/2021 11:04

Thank you in advance. I haven't seen any information about this and wondered if there was data out there or if someone with more understanding of the effects of the vaccines might know.

OP posts:
Rainbowsandstorms · 25/03/2021 11:42

I’ve been wondering the same thing. I’m assuming that by reducing the risk of getting Covid it will reduce the risk of long Covid.

BentBastard · 25/03/2021 11:48

Surely too soon to say. Most haven been fully(2 doses) vaccinated and those that have won't have had time to develop long covid, whether possible or not.

giletrouge · 25/03/2021 12:30

Good question. Vaccines - forgive me if I'm wrong - reduce the risk of getting covid and of spreading it and, if you do get it, of getting a bad case of it. But - again I'm not an expert I'm just saying what I've gathered - it would seem that long covid is as likely after mild covid as it is after serious, if not even more so. So theoretically the risk of getting lc after c might not be as reduced as the risk of getting c in the first place, IYSWIM?
I should think there's no data on this yet because fully vacced people are so few and only recent.

giletrouge · 25/03/2021 12:32

However there was a radio report the other day that - annecdotally only so far - some people with long covid were recovering their normal health after getting vacced. It's referred to on one of the long covid threads. It was on a R4 news prog.

Woodpecker22 · 25/03/2021 12:46

@giletrouge

However there was a radio report the other day that - annecdotally only so far - some people with long covid were recovering their normal health after getting vacced. It's referred to on one of the long covid threads. It was on a R4 news prog.
Yes this is really interesting. There is some anecdotal evidence on this www.wired.co.uk/article/covid-19-long-haulers-vaccine

'She has three theories that could explain what is happening in the bodies of long Covid sufferers, and how the vaccine might be alleviating the persisting symptoms the condition causes.

Firstly it may be that there is a viral reservoir somewhere in the body where the virus is replicating but it can’t be located because it is inaccessible by nasal swabs. The vaccines may be stimulating T cells and antibodies that then eliminate that viral reservoir. Secondly, Iwasaki suggests, the persisting symptoms could be attributed to some remnants of the virus hiding somewhere in the body, causing a similar kind of inflammatory response – like a viral ghost. Vaccine-induced immunity may wipe out the viral ghost. Finally, long Covid could be chalked up to an autoimmune response induced by the infection, in which T cells or B cells, or both, are reacting out of place, and the vaccine may be diverting these cells.

It may also be that the vaccine is stimulating the innate immune response, and the short-lasting inflammation that causes could be diverting the immune cells causing long Covid. “I haven’t ruled in or ruled out any of those possibilities yet, because I think the data [are] too early,” she says. “These numbers are still very small. So even though it’s statistically significant, we need to see if this holds up in a larger scale study.” She emphasises that these theories are not mutually exclusive, so diagnosing what people have, and then giving them the appropriate treatment, will be key going forward. “We cannot treat long Covid as one disease, because they may be driven by different things.”

WhereDidYouGetThatHat · 25/03/2021 15:28

Thanks, I really appreciate your replies and the information about long covid sufferers after vaccination.

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notrub · 25/03/2021 15:48

You have to remember that long-covid is a statistical label, not a disease. It is quite likely to include multiple different things, the only measure is that symptoms continue to present a set period after infection.

I think in some cases it is clearly down to damage done by the virus while present in the body - e.g. people who report no sense of smell. Eventually, the damage is repaired (in most cases).

In others it is quite likely an immune response - particularly in cases where the initial infection is asymptomatic or very mild, but then weeks later much more serious symptoms manifest - this occurred with a 30 yr old friend of mine who didn't even know she'd had covid, but then a month later started suffering very low blood oxygen levels.

So as far as the damage done by the virus cases go, YES vaccination should significantly reduce the risks. For the second category, without knowing the mechanism by which the problems are caused, there is no way of predicting the impact of vaccination - however AFAIK there have been no reported cases of long-covid in anybody vaccinated, and given the high scrutiny of those involved in the trials, had it occurred, it would have been noted. So that would suggest the risks are reduced between 60% (same as symptomatic disease) to 100%.

Cornettoninja · 25/03/2021 15:51

Firstly it may be that there is a viral reservoir somewhere in the body where the virus is replicating but it can’t be located because it is inaccessible by nasal swabs

I find this fascinating. The pandemic prompted me to look up typhoid Mary at one point; it was found that typhoid superspreaders harboured the typhoid bacteria in their gallbladders whilst remaining completely well themselves. Mary could have had her gallbladder removed but she wasn’t convinced by the theory and spent the rest of her life isolated in a hospital with other superspreaders. I suppose turn of the 20th century surgery was a very different prospect to surgery today.

It would be amazing if they found a similar scenario with covid.

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