New daily case numbers of COVID-19 are expected to soar into the tens of thousands by early in 2022 as the virus circulates freely among the 95% fully vaccinated population.
Accepting high case numbers was always the plan. Through weakened mutated variants, vaccine protection, medications and some social restrictions, the idea is that the virus will morph into one similar to the flu.
But what remains muddy is the long-term effects, known as long COVID. Before vaccines were readily available, many abroad complained of fatigue and body aches, depression and loss of taste for months after recovering. Up to 20,000 Australians may have already developed long COVID. Some could suffer symptoms for a year — although the impact vaccines will have is still not known.
What does the data say?
Other viruses can cause symptoms that linger, but the scale of COVID transmission means we have a lot more information — and it seems SARS-CoV-2 is more likely to cause long-term illness than others, says joint head of infectious diseases and immune defence at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Professor Marc Pellegrini.
“We haven’t before seen the proportion of people coming down with a range of persistent symptoms, which ranges from everything from lethargy to difficulty concentrating,” he said.
But due to that range of symptoms, characterising long COVID is difficult. Many people who catch it aren’t hospitalised, meaning their ongoing symptoms might not be recorded or attributed to COVID, while symptoms that could be exhaustion or other factors could be put down to the virus.
One UK study found 13% of people who caught COVID-19 still had symptoms after 12 weeks. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called on countries to identify, research and treat long COVID and collect data.
It’s not all bad news: some research has shown even those with organ damage physically recover within a year, although the impact on anxiety and depression for survivors is still being researched.
Most who develop long COVID had severe cases of the illness, Pellegrini says, with some long-term effects such as weak respiratory muscles caused by being on a ventilator.
“It does seem to be more common in people that have got severe disease, but I wouldn’t be dismissive of the problem in people who have who initially had more mild disease — there are still cases,” he said.
But that was all before vaccines.
How do vaccines effect long COVID?
In a preprint study, researchers found up to nearly 20,000 Australians may have developed long COVID, with that number expected to grow over Christmas, and estimated up to 11,000 may continue to experience symptoms a year after their infection.
But it’s still not known how the vaccine will affect the forward projections, the research authors said. Evidence suggests vaccines protect against some symptoms of long COVID in those aged under 60, including renal disease, mood, anxiety and sleep disorders.
They also protect against transmission. Once COVID enters a person’s body, antigens develop and attack the virus, limiting it from replicating and reducing how much is in a person’s body, which lowers the chances of passing it to someone else.
This is key, says University of Sydney immunisation expert Professor Robert Booy: “If you don’t get infected, you don’t get long COVID.”
But the focus of vaccines is protecting against severe illness, meaning that even with mild symptoms long COVID may still be a concern for a small subset of survivors.
Long covid is only the tip of the ice berg- kidney failure ,heart inflammation, foggy thinking from effect on the the list goes on.The real cost to the Health System and the economy will be staggering that is why China is pursuing zero transmission policy realising it will unlikely achieve it but at least has a policy goal which keeps the country ticking over nearly normally
NSW has f****d the country with poor decision makers, too little too late Gladys succeeded by no the decision,” let er rip” by Bolsonaro Perrottet – and wanting to import more from overseas. But the media are uncritically fawning over him as a latter day prophet.
Covid is acting like all viruses – ever met someone who has had glandular fever 5 years ago and they are still drained of energy , what about shingles the ongoing pain for years if not treated early, making the person even turn into a narcotic addict. So WA are lucky they can lead a relatively normal life and Qld was lucky until the advent of the new CHO who seems to be a statistician not a clinician- ‘we gunna get it so don’t worry’
As the finance sector has shown – no one has calculated the trailing commissions of the effects of Covid and the poor policy decisions. The ‘we are the government ‘ and we make up our own minds no need to listen to the experts treat them like lobbyists.
It is good of Amber to bring to our consciousness the other costs of poor political decisions.
Glandular fever killed a friend of mine after 60 years when her heart valve ripped. But she had made very good use of those years.
It must be assumed that everyone will get some form of covid19. A zen budhist master living in a cave high in the Himalayas will be the last. Unless a truly effective vaccine comes along first. For all we know there may be non-symptomatic vaccinated carriers.
that is the problem most of the vaccinated are carriers – they don’t get sick but if you are unvaccinated you will mainly get sick and into intensive care
Don’t worry, in less than a month from now there will be lots of double AZ vaccinated people getting Covid19, because their antibody levels have dropped by 3/4 in the space of 12 weeks and the boosters aren’t available until 20 weeks.
I wonder who forgot to put the order in this time?
Dear Drastic. The opinion you have expressed is a version of Herd Immunity by infection.It just doesn’t work.
Vaccines do not just “Happen” and the world has been waiting for a new Corona Virus outbreak from China for the last 10 years or so. That is why the first vaccines “happened” so quickly.
The lockdowns, the closed borders, the vaccines as they have developed from the rough and untested until it was used on the population of the UK aka Boris’ Brew or AZ, through to the mRNA vaccines and at some stage coming a protein based Novavax, each vaccine getting better at slowing and reducing the effects of Covid19 infections and transmission rates with more vaccines and a possible immunization currently in development.
The new CHO of Queensland is actually a very dangerous appointment, who may end up having a lasting impact on the state’s entire economy. He is basically going to let Covid19 rip through the population.
The Qld CHO doesn’t seem to think that Long Covid and all the other side issues such as heart valve damage, strokes and renal disease developed by people who have had this infection count.
Or that long term disabilities caused by a controllable infection cost the country enormous amounts in lost production.
This is what happens when you allow researchers access to the general population without adequate checks and balances in place.
Human experimentation comes to mind, although we all know it is banned by the WHO.
When the dust settles, the meeja dogs have barked and the herd moves on,the wayside will be marked by corpses, decreasing as the distance stretches.
Bingo, herd immunity, aka anyone gonna die, did. It’s party time!
Until one day, on a sunlit upland, some crafty old bastard points to an untrustworthy, over brutish underling and tells him to go and spy out the land below, which floweth with milk & honey and the sound of the turtle was heard.
Antibodies develop-not antigens.
Indeed. The antigen IS the virus. The body creates the antibodies to bind to the antigen and neutraliase it.
It also won’t morph into the flu. It if history is any guide morph into the common cold, an entirely different disease. Just as OC43 did following the 1889-90 Russian Flu pandemic. Which now appears to have been a coronavirus (OC43), not an influenza, pandemic.
I wonder what AdamShcwab has to say on this issue.
Nothing of value? just guessing…
If you’re young and think “vaccines are not worth the risk” because your likelihood of dying was so low, consider that your likelihood of developing COVID CFS is about 3,000x higher than suffering from a bad vaccine side effect6.”
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/long-covid-chronic-fatigue-syndrome