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GOOD NEWS: Being vaccinated against COVID-19 also protects against long COVID in the event of a breakthrough infection, new research suggests.
A study from King's College London found that individuals who had received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine developed long COVID 50% less frequently than infected individuals who were not vaccinated.
As more people get vaccinated, a surprise discovery has been that the vaccines seem to provide relief for some patients with what’s being called “long COVID” (when symptoms linger for weeks or even months).
Persistent and unpredictable, the symptoms of long COVID can include chronic cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, memory and sleep problems, and in the most severe cases, even organ damage.
Though only 0.2% of fully vaccinated people using the U.K.'s Zoe COVID Study app reported a breakthrough infection, 592 of them provided enough survey data to determine the infrequency of symptoms lasting more than four weeks.
31 of the 592 (~5%) still had some symptoms a month after initial infection, compared to 11% in the unvaccinated group.
A prior study also found that getting vaccinated helped some people already suffering from long COVID get relief from symptoms.