Vaccination also clearly protects against long-term Covid according to new research | Coronavirus what you need to know

The study have not yet been verified by other scientists, but Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans has already shared them on social media. Long-term Covid refers to the phenomenon that a person sometimes still has one or more complaints weeks or months after an acute infection.

Approximately 3,400 subjects participated in the study. They all took a PCR test at a hospital between March 2020 and November 2021 to determine if they were infected with the coronavirus and completed an online questionnaire, asking about their symptoms. 951 of them were found to be infected, 2,437 were uninfected. Among the infected subjects, 637 had been vaccinated (67%).

The most frequently reported symptoms were fatigue (22%), headache (20%), weakness (13%) and persistent muscle pain (10%).

Test subjects who had been fully vaccinated were later found to suffer from prior complaints by 64%, 54%, 57% and 68% respectively. Moreover, those who were fully vaccinated did not report these symptoms more than people who were not infected with the virus.

Thus, according to the researchers, full vaccination clearly reduces the number of reports of the most common long-term Covid symptoms, even to the level of someone who has not had Covid.

The research took place before the introduction of the omikron variant. The researchers plan to collect new data in the coming weeks to better understand this as well.