Long Covid: Rarely among those who have been vaccinated

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.

Even those who are vaccinated can become infected with Sars-CoV-2 - because even the best vaccine does not protect 100 percent. In the case of vaccinated people, however, the new infection is usually easy - this became apparent early on in the course of the vaccination campaigns. But what about long covid, i.e. long-lasting symptoms in the aftermath of the infection, from which many only mildly ill suffer?

A British study now provides further positive news for vaccinated people: The vaccinations not only protect very well against infections and severe courses - those who become infected also only bear half the risk of long covid as an unvaccinated person.

Who does Long Covid meet?

Long Covid - also known as Post Covid Syndrome - is still one of the great unknowns of the pandemic. It is not completely clear what causes long-lasting symptoms such as exhaustion, concentration disorders, breathing problems and organ and nerve damage after a Covid 19 disease. And it is also still uncertain who they prefer to meet and whether they will disappear completely again.

A total of 1.24 million British people took part in the current study on this topic. Those who were infected reported symptoms every day over a period of 28 days using a smartphone app.

0.2 percent of those vaccinated became infected

0.2 percent of users (6,030 people) stated that they were infected with Sars-CoV-2 between December 8, 2020 and July 4, 2021 despite a full vaccination with the vaccine from BioNTech / Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Moderna . The number of unreported cases is likely to be higher - because an infection is more symptom-free in vaccinated people than in unvaccinated people.

The proportion of infected people who reported symptoms 28 days after a positive PCR test was lower among the vaccinated: those who were fully vaccinated had long-lasting symptoms only half as often as those who had not been vaccinated.

The investigation does not provide any information about the long-term consequences of the infection that continue to burden those affected months later.

People with previous illnesses develop long covid more often

The study also reveals which people were more often affected by a breakthrough infection (= infection despite a complete vaccination). This mainly included seniors who also suffered from kidney, heart or lung disease.

But people who lived in socially disadvantaged environments were also more frequently affected by vaccination breakthroughs.

Normal weight protects - a little

A BMI of less than 30, on the other hand, seems to protect something against breakthrough infections: For app users who were not obese, the risk of a new infection was 16 percent lower than for obese people.

This study also confirmed that the likelihood of having to go to hospital in the event of a breakthrough infection is significantly lower for those who have been vaccinated than for those who have not been vaccinated.

The data provided by the study are particularly valuable due to the large number of participants. However, as the study authors emphasize, it is a purely observational study, the data of which is based solely on the voluntary information provided by the participants - and was not backed up by medical findings, for example.

They could also be somewhat distorted by the fact that significantly more women than men took part in the study and people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds were comparatively few represented.

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