A comprehensive review by the UK Health Security Agency implies that getting a Covid shot lowers the chance of getting long Covid and may help people who already have it feel better.

The “rapid evidence briefing” combined data from 15 UK and foreign research, nearly half of which looked at whether Covid vaccination protected people who had never been infected from developing long Covid, and the other looked at the impact of vaccination on those who already had long Covid.

It was discovered that, in addition to any benefit gained from not contracting the virus in the first place, those who do contract it are less likely to develop long Covid if they had gotten one or two doses of vaccine compared to those who have not.

Individual long-term Covid symptoms, such as fatigue, headache, weakness in the arms and legs, persistent muscle pain, hair loss, dizziness, shortness of breath, loss of smell, or scarring of the lungs, were found to be less common in fully vaccinated people than in unvaccinated people in two studies.

“There is also evidence that unvaccinated people with long Covid who were subsequently vaccinated had, on average, reduced long Covid symptoms, or fewer long Covid symptoms than those who remained unvaccinated,” according to the review.

However, some participants experienced worsening symptoms following vaccination, according to the study.

Deborah Dunn-Walters, who is the chair of the British Society for Immunology Covid-19 taskforce and a professor of immunology at the University of Surrey, said that there was not yet enough information to explain why vaccination should make people’s symptoms better.

“The term ‘long Covid’ covers a wide range of post-Covid conditions and so we don’t yet fully understand all the processes involved,” she explained.

One notion is that it will help clean out any lingering virus reservoirs in the body, or virus fragments that are causing persistent inflammation. Another theory is that vaccination rebalances the immune response in persons with autoimmune-like symptoms, which could explain why some people have worse symptoms after vaccination, according to Dunn-Walters.

“This review re-emphasises the importance of everyone, no matter their age, getting vaccinated against Covid-19,” she added. “Although there has been a high uptake of the vaccines in the UK so far, a significant number of people still need to come forward for a first or second dose. We must continue to make every effort to reach these people and encourage them to come forward for Covid-19 vaccination.”

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