UVA Health researchers have discovered a potential way to predict which patients with severe COVID-19 are likely to recover well and which are likely to suffer “long-haul” lung problems. That finding could help doctors better personalize treatments for individual patients.
The researchers estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) against long COVID in children aged 5 to 17 years. Though severe COVID-19 cases are less common in children than in adults, persistent symptoms in children do occur.
Those who received at least two vaccinations and had fewer repeat infections, and those who were infected with later variants of SARS-CoV-2 had lower measures of cognitive decline.
Researchers also found that vaccination against Covid, with either mRNA or viral vector shot, reduced the risk of developing a new autoimmune disease. They did not spell out in the study exactly how much vaccines reduced the risk of AIRDs.
