COVID vaccines decreased incidence of Long COVID

July 31, 2024

Source: Xie, et al, New Engl J Med July 17, 2024 LINK  Vaccinations were not available in the pre-Delta time period. Pre-delta was March, 2020 to June, 2021; Delta was June, 2021 to December 2021, and Omicron was December 2021 to January 2022.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported last week on a large study from the Veterans Administration that demonstrated that Long COVID incidence has decreased over time, and COVID-19 vaccinations were associated with substantial decreases in the risk of Long COVID. Long COVID is also called PASC, Post Acute Sequelae of COVID.

Researchers reviewed medical records of over 400,000 veterans who had COVID and compared these with records of over 4.7 million veterans who had not had COVID at that point in time. The researchers adjusted for demographics and medical diagnoses.

They determined that compared to those who were unvaccinated, those who had been vaccinated were 44% less likely to develop Long COVID during the Delta virus variant period, and 28% less likely to develop Long COVID during the Omicron virus variant period. The overall rate of Long COVID declined from 10.4% before the Delta variant (when there were no vaccines available) to 9.5% during the Delta variant period to 4.9% in the Omicron variant period.

The researchers measured symptoms of Long COVID by medical record at one year after infection, and defined Long COVID broadly, as having a single health outcome in one of ten categories (cardiovascular, blood clotting, fatigue, GI, kidney, mental health, metabolic, musculoskeletal, neurologic and pulmonary).

The researchers also calculated disability adjusted life years (DALY) a measure of how many healthy years of life were lost. They found those without vaccination lost substantially more DALYs during both the Delta and Omicron periods.

Source: Xie, et al, New Engl J Med July 17, 2024 LINK

Implications for employers:

-        Employers can continue to encourage fall COVID-19 vaccinations, which prevent illness and are now well shown to decrease risk of disability. COVID vaccines can be administered with influenza vaccines, so employees can roll up both of their sleeves during workplace flu/COVID vaccination clinics.

-        COVID-19 vaccinations will continue to be available in pharmacies and provider offices.

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Tomorrow: Shorts and follow ups