Will Vaccines Protect Me From Long Covid?

Hi folks, it’s Kristen in New York, where I just stockpiled rapid tests in anticipation of a full calendar of Christmas parties. Better safe than sick. Speaking of that relentless virus, a reader wonders about the best way to prevent long Covid. But first...

I’m over 70 and I’m vaccinated, boosted and received my bivalent booster a couple of weeks ago. I’m one of the lucky ones who hasn’t contracted Covid-19 or any of its variants. My question is: If a person contracts Covid now, do vaccination and boosters help prevent long Covid – or is that just the roll of the dice? Cindy, Washington

The answer is yes — to both scenarios.

“Yes, vaccinations and boosters help prevent long Covid, and yes it’s also a roll of the dice,” says Jessica Justman, an infectious diseases specialist and epidemiologist at Columbia University.

SARS-CoV-2 has been steeped in uncertainty from the start, and there is still so much we don’t know about the virus and its effects on humans. That applies here, too. The diverse array of lingering symptoms that have come to be commonly known as long Covid might, in fact, be one of the biggest mysteries associated with the disease.