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The Bay Area is rapidly rolling back on indoor masking, with most counties in the region now recommending that even vaccinated people wear face covers indoors amid concerns over the highly contagious variant of the delta coronavirus .
Most COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to be very effective in protecting against serious illness and hospitalizations due to the delta variant, but groundbreaking cases are occurring – and some experts have said the potential for known persistent health problems under the name of “long COVID” makes them think.
Bob Wachter, chairman of the UCSF’s Department of Medicine, said that although he is fully vaccinated, the possible long COVID risk has led him to take more stringent precautions again.
“Personally, I factor in the possibility of having a mild case of COVID that results in persistent symptoms… into my own personal calculation that guides my behavior,” Wachter said in an email. “I still don’t want to get it, both because of this long unknown risk of COVID, as well as the low but not zero risk that I could get a mild case and pass it on to a vulnerable person.”
Here’s what we know about the delta variant and the long COVID risk.
What is a long COVID?
According to the CDC, post-COVID conditions known collectively as the post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or PASC, are ongoing, returning health issues or new issues that are emerging more four weeks after the initial infection. These symptoms can occur in anyone who has had COVID-19. Patients report different combinations of a number of symptoms, including difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, fatigue, brain fog, cough, headache, and a change in smell or taste.
How many people have developed long symptoms of COVID?
The number of patients with COVID-19 is unclear, as most people who develop COVID-19 are not hospitalized and therefore not followed by the CDC. An article published in Nature last month cited data from the UK Office of National Statistics, which has followed more than 20,000 people who tested positive since April 2020 and found that 13.7% showed symptoms after at at least 12 weeks. The agency defines long-term COVID as symptoms lasting more than four weeks.
I have been fully vaccinated. What is my risk of developing a long COVID if I am infected?
The short answer is we don’t know for sure yet. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley, said no solid studies had been conducted so far to answer this question. Even anecdotal reports were few.
However, Swartzberg said his guess is that a long COVID will be unlikely in fully vaccinated people. “Vaccines dramatically suppress viral replication in people who have breakthrough infections,” he said in an email. “Our bodies will have less to contend with during the breakthrough of the infection and this should make the long COVID less likely.”
He said more will be known in the coming months as COVID infections increase due to the delta variant.
Wachter also said some experts believe long COVID is unlikely to develop in fully vaccinated people due to limited viral replication, and added that COVID long clinics have not reported seeing any many revolutionary cases. However, he said the evidence to support this theory was still lacking.
What happens to those who are infected with the delta variant, whether or not they are vaccinated?
Studies so far suggest that the delta variant is 50% more transmissible than the alpha variant, which was 50% more infectious than the original strain. But what about the severity of the variant?
“There is no convincing evidence that the delta variant makes people sicker,” Swartzberg said. “If you are fully vaccinated, it is unlikely that you will get sick if you are infected with the delta variant. If you do get sick, it will most likely be a mild illness. It is very unlikely that you will get sick enough to be hospitalized or die. “
He said nationally, unvaccinated people account for 97% of COVID hospitalizations, while in Los Angeles County that number is 99%.
“People who have long COVID are almost always the ones who are not vaccinated and are infected,” Swartzberg said.
Monica Gandhi, infectious disease expert at UCSF, said that, according to CDC data, severe cases of serious illness are rare, accounting for only about 0.002% of those cases.
“With adaptive immunity to combat the breakthrough in most vaccinated cases, we hope COVID doesn’t happen for long,” she said.
Kellie Hwang is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @KellieHwang
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