In addition to the COVID-19 vaccines’ effectiveness at preventing infection, hospitalization, and death, new research presented in The Lancet found it reduces the risk of long COVID in breakthrough cases.
The prospective, case-controlled study observed millions of UK-based adults and 8,400 breakthrough COVID-19 cases between Dec. 2020 and July 2021. Vaccinated individuals in the study had received the Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca, or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Analysis showed that nearly all COVID-19 symptoms were less common — and infection was less severe — in breakthrough vaccinated participants than in unvaccinated people, and a greater proportion of vaccinated people with breakthrough infections were asymptomatic compared to the unvaccinated people with COVID-19. Most notably, the researchers found that having two vaccine doses halved the likelihood of an individual experiencing COVID-19 symptoms 28 days or more after a breakthrough infection when compared to unvaccinated individuals. These results provide yet more powerful evidence for the effectiveness of the COVID vaccines.Source: Risk factors and disease profile of post-vaccination SARS-CoV-2 infection in UK users of the COVID Symptom Study app: a prospective, community-based, nested, case-control study, The Lancet