Did a new study just show that COVID-19 vaccines dramatically increase the risk of getting long COVID?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Vaccines Greatly Increase Risk Of Long COVID!
People are sharing a video by The Epoch Times which claims or suggests that a new study just showed that COVID-19 vaccines dramatically increase the risk of getting long COVID!
The Epoch Times : COVID vaccines linked to “Long Covid”.
According to a new study just published on the NIH website: being vaccinated with 2 shots of the Covid vaccine dramatically increases a person’s chance of getting Long Covid.
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Truth : Vaccines Do Not Increase Risk Of Long COVID!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created or promoted by anti-vaccine activists, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : Arjun et. al. Study Was Published In 2022
Let me start by pointing out that the M. C. Arjun et. al. study mentioned in the Epoch Times videos is not new, as alleged.
The Arjun et. al. study is actually more than a year old, being published in PLOS ONE on 20 December 2022. You can read it in full here, and verify the date of publication.
Why would The Epoch Times dig up this study from 2022, when several newer studies showed that COVID-19 vaccines significantly reduced the risk of developing long COVID?
Fact #2 : Study Did Not Conclude Vaccines Increase Long COVID Risk
While the Arjun et. al. study results show that receiving two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine was a predictor of long COVID, the authors did not reach the conclusion, calling it “an observational paradox” that might be explained by vaccination patients more likely to survive COVID-19 infections.
This collider bias, they pointed out, was to be expected since their sample only included patients with access to hospital care. In fact, their study showed that patients who received hospital care were associated with a higher risk of developing long COVID symptoms!
An observational paradox in our study was that the participants who took two doses of COVID-19 vaccination had higher odds of developing Long COVID. It could be due to better survival in vaccinated individuals who may continue to exhibit symptoms of COVID-19 disease.
We could not find any interaction effect of COVID-19 vaccination and acute COVID-19 severity on causing Long COVID.
This association might have also arisen due to Collider bias [40]. The Collider bias might have operated in this case since the sample included only COVID-19 positive tested patients who accessed the hospital (healthcare workers included) making the sample inherently biased to derive such conclusions.
They also pointed out that other studies have shown that COVID-19 vaccination reduced long COVID risks. So why would anyone use their paper to draw a completely different conclusion?
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Fact #3 : Other Factors Were Far More Significant
If you read the Arjun et. al. study, you will notice (see results) that it actually found that other factors were more strongly associated with a higher risk of developing long COVID:
- suffering from 1 to 4 symptoms of COVID-19
- suffering from 5 or more symptoms of COVID-19
- developing severe or critical COVID-19
- being admitted to a hospital
In other words – you are more likely to get long COVID, if you experience moderate or severe COVID-19. Which means the benefits of vaccination still outweighs the risks.
Fact #4 : Newer Studies Show Vaccines Greatly Reduce Long COVID Risk
Curiously, this sudden interest in the old the Arjun et. al. study came just after Scientific American posted its article on how several new studies show how getting multiple COVID-19 vaccine doses “dramatically lowers long COVID risk“.
A growing consensus is emerging that receiving multiple doses of the COVID vaccine before an initial infection can dramatically reduce the risk of long-term symptoms. Although the studies disagree on the exact amount of protection, they show a clear trend: the more shots in your arm before your first bout with COVID, the less likely you are to get long COVID.
One meta-analysis of 24 studies published in October, for example, found that people who’d had three doses of the COVID vaccine were 68.7 percent less likely to develop long COVID compared with those who were unvaccinated.
In short – newer studies show that COVID-19 vaccines not only protect against long COVID, the protection increases with each additional dose!
Therefore, if you are worried about long COVID, you should definitely be up-to-date on your COVID-19 vaccinations!
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Fact #5 : Long COVID More Common In Unvaccinated People
According to Scientific American, the prevalence of long COVID is significantly greater in unvaccinated people, compared to people who had two or more doses of the COVID-19 vaccines.
- Unvaccinated : 11%
- Fully-vaccinated : 5%
Again, it clearly shows that COVID-19 vaccines have a significant protective effect against long COVID.
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Name : Adrian Wong
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
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