The good news is, the risk of developing Long COVID has dropped significantly since the start of the pandemic—and, according to a new study, we have COVID-19 vaccines to thank for much of this decline. The bad news is, the risk of developing this post-acute infection syndrome remains substantial.
At the pandemic’s onset, approximately 10% of people who suffered COVID-19 infections went on to develop Long COVID. Now, the risk of getting Long COVID has dropped to about 3.5% among vaccinated people (primary series). While this is a considerable decline, over 1.3 million Americans are still becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 every day. “You do the math—3 to 4% of those people is a huge number of potential Long COVID patients being added to the roster,” says Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, chief of Research and Development Service at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System and the study’s senior author....
While the overall risk of Long COVID has declined, the researchers found that unvaccinated individuals now face a greater chance of developing metabolic and gastrointestinal disorders, including diabetes and dyslipidemia (abnormal levels of fat in blood), post-COVID compared to earlier groups. “We have a large cohort of people with metabolic disorders in the United States who may be at particular risk of those being exacerbated with COVID,” says Dr. Roberts. “This needs to be looked at in greater detail.”
...
