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Long COVID.  Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome. (PACS)

A lot of people who have had a COVID infection (even those that have had asymptomatic or mild COVID), suffer from a syndrome known as Long COVID.   This can have major long-term health implications.  And this will result in very major long-term costs to the community.

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Some references:

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If you want a great introduction to Long COVID, you should list to this detailed discussion (about 7 minutes) from Anne de Gheest 30/Apr/2021 Clinical update which is here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg3K6yLQuPk  Start watching at the 18 minute mark.

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Some slides from Anne de Gheest's 16/Apr/21 Clinical COVID update.

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Anne_de_Gheest_210416_Long_COVID_issues.

Note: On the slide above, PCP = Primary Care Provider

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Anne_de_Gheest_210416_Long_COVID_hospita
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Anne_de_Gheest_210416_Long_COVID_persist
Anne_de_Gheest_210416_Long_COVID_organ_d
Anne_de_Gheest_210416_Long_COVID_brain_d

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1410358406699896834    1/July/2021

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Interesting article on a topic that I think is critical to know the answer to.

Do vaccines reduce the risk of Long-COVID? 7/July/21

https://www.scotsman.com/health/no-evidence-vaccine-reduces-risk-of-long-covid-says-expert-3298837

The bottom line of this article, that the date of this article, there is NO EVIDENCE/Research yet that provides the answer to this question.

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I am fairly confident that to the extent that vaccines prevent infection, it will reduce Long-COVID - and the mRNA vaccines are clearly the best at reducing infections. And we are now seeing in the heavily vaccinated countries that are facing a wave of delta variant, that even the mRNA vaccines are not as effective at preventing delta infections as they were with previous variants. https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1417328230097309701

 

But if you have a vaccine and you still get infected with COVID, does the vaccine at least reduce the risk of Long-COVID? That question is critically important because Long-COVID is set to become a massive and ongoing burden to the health system for many years to come for most countries.

 

Particularly while we do not know the answer to this question, this issue is why all Australians should have access to the very best vaccines possible to not only reduce hospitalisations and death (as AstraZeneca is good at doing) but also to reduce infections (and AstraZeneca is not so good at that). And the government needs to be ordering the very best updated vaccines until we get to the point where we have the perfect vaccine - if that is possible. 

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