Though the CDC claims people who choose not to get the COVID vaccine are more at risk of "long COVID," a new study reveals there is a negligible difference in risk for "long COVID" symptoms between those with and without the vaccine.
"Long COVID" refers to cases of COVID-19 in which affected individuals continue experiencing symptoms for weeks or months after initially contracting the virus. The CDC says, "people who did not get a COVID-19 vaccine may be more at risk for developing post-COVID conditions (or long COVID)."
According to the study from Nature Medicine, vaccines only decrease the risk of long COVID by about 15 percent.
One in five adults experience long COVID symptoms according to the CDC. But Dr. Greg Vanichkachorn, director of the COVID activity rehabilitation program at the Mayo Clinic, said "the majority of folks with long COVID have not had severe infections" (via NBC).
Booster vaccines do very little, if anything, to prevent long COVID according to Vanichkachorn (via NBC):
I do not think boosting will do much to prevent long COVID with the vaccine. We have many patients with breakthrough infections who are as vaccinated as possible. We also have not seen much of a difference between variants with long COVID symptoms.
Many are still encouraging masking to prevent COVID, even though the mandates in the past two years have not prevented transmission of the virus. Dr. Margaret Liu, chair of the board of the International Society for Vaccines, has highlighted such concerns (via Medical News Today):
A big reason that I and other physicians are still being so careful to still mask and to avoid as much as possible situations of exposure is that prevention of any COVID-19 infection is still the best strategy to avoid long-haul COVID.
The CDC has not provided any statistics relating to deaths caused specifically by long COVID and COVID deaths in general are going down. But as Townhall reported, lockdowns saw an increase in drug overdose deaths, domestic violence, and more harmful consequences.