Vaccines and boosters undeniably do a good job at protecting against severe disease, hospitalization, or death caused by COVID-19. One hope that health care professionals and the public at large had was that the shots would also help protect against Long COVID—cases in which symptoms of the disease linger for weeks, months, or even longer after an initial infection. But, as my colleague Jamie Ducharme reports, new findings suggest that may not be the case.
Anywhere from 5% to 30% of people who come down with COVID-19 will develop Long COVID, depending upon the study and how it defines the condition. Over the past year, a wealth of research has emerged looking at the role vaccines can play in bringing those numbers down—and, on the whole, the results have been disappointing. One study published in July by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics, for example, found that more than 4% of vaccinated and boosted adults in the U.K. who contracted the Delta, Omicron BA.1, or BA.2 variants of SARS-CoV-2 were still symptomatic 12 weeks later.
More worrying, a Sept. 6 pre-print study posted online (which has not yet been peer-reviewed) found that in the U.S., about 20% of people who reported having COVID-19 at least a month earlier were still symptomatic after four weeks—with little difference shown between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Other research, published in eClinical Medicine in August, offered somewhat brighter results. Analyzing six studies that looked at whether people who were vaccinated before they got sick had a lower chance of developing Long COVID than unvaccinated people, it found that the shots indeed reduced the risk. Another study, published in Nature Medicine in May, also found that vaccinated people were less likely to develop Long COVID than unvaccinated people—but only by about 15%.
As Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, and a co-author of the Nature Medicine study, told Jamie: "[T]he common thread is vaccines do offer some protection [against Long COVID], but it’s never complete. It’s partial.”
That isn’t the shots’ fault. COVID-19 vaccines were never designed to prevent chronic symptoms, only to lessen the chances of having severe acute disease.
The introduction of the new bivalent vaccines, which protect against the original SARS-CoV-2 strain as well as the Omicron variants, adds another X-factor to the equation, says Al-Aly. The shots have not yet been studied for their ability to reduce the risk of Long COVID—and won’t be able to be until they're rolled out wide and sample groups can be recruited and studied. One hard truth remains, however: The best way to avoid developing Long COVID is to never contract any case of COVID-19 at all—and vaccines remain one of the most powerful tools available to offer that protection.
More than 608.6 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 9 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 6.5 million people have died. On Sept. 11, there were 311,106 new cases and 701 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending, in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 10 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 95.2 million coronavirus cases as of 9 a.m. E.T. today. More than 1.05 million people have died. On Sept. 11, there were 7,955 new cases reported in the U.S., and 5 deaths were confirmed.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Sept. 12. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
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WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The U.S. labor force has shrunk by around 500,000 people, due to ongoing COVID-19 infections, reports the Wall Street Journal—a figure that is likely to persist if new cases continue to occur at current rates. The total labor force reached 164.7 million people in August, which is actually higher than it was in February 2020, pre-pandemic, but still half a million lower than it would be if the disease were not still circulating. The shortage of workers is one of the variables contributing to employers’ inability to keep up with the demand for goods and services, a key factor in ongoing high inflation rates.
Food shortages are on the rise in at least 30 regions in China, with tens of millions of people placed under COVID-19 lockdown , as the government battles a surge in infections that saw 949 new cases reported today, according to the BBC. In some cities, including Chengdu—home to 21 million people—one person per household is permitted to go out to buy necessities, but that is often futile, as many supermarkets across the country have been shuttered. Online food sales have also been halted as sellers are forbidden to make deliveries to homes. Party officials have promised to lift some restrictions today in five areas of Chengdu that have low infection rates, but the other affected regions of the city, as well as huge swaths of the country at large, remain under quarantine.
New Zealand is discontinuing most COVID-19 restrictions beginning today,ending more than two years of some of the world’s strictest anti-pandemic protocols, Reuters reports. With infection rates low, the government is scrapping all mask-wearing requirements, except in hospitals and elder-care facilities. People who test positive for COVID-19 will still have to isolate for seven days, but that rule will no longer apply to others in their households. Vaccine mandates will also end beginning Sept. 26, with the decision of whether to require the shots left to employers. "Finally, rather than feeling that COVID dictates what happens to us, our lives, and our futures, we take back control," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a press conference today.
As employers ponder return-to-office policies,one-third of employed U.S. adults report that they are “very” or “moderately” concerned about contracting COVID-19 in the workplace, reports a new study by the Gallup polling organization. The results are little changed from those of nearly a year ago, when infection rates were more or less the same but death rates were much higher. Partly driving the ongoing worry is the approach of the cold and flu season, with more than two-thirds of workers saying they expect COVID-19 infection rates to rise “a great deal” or “a moderate amount.” Gender played a role in the results, with working women reporting that they were more concerned about on-the job exposure than working men, by a margin of 41% to 26%.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Angela Haupt.
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