Updates to "Protective"
Better table uploads, and a whopper of a "Covid vaccine fail" find by DoorlessCarp.
I have improved the resolution and annotations for the tables in this week’s “Long Covid efficacy?” study review:
I have also appended an examination of a “Covid vaccine failure anecdote,” essentially shamelessly recycling the work of DoorlessCarp. The new version of the conclusion, with appended shameless recycling, is cross-posted below:
Fundamentally Inconclusive
As stated in the overview of the dataset, the most that can be said about this study is that it is a (likely bias-distorted) element of evidence in favor of a conclusion. It must be weighted against others. As regards “Long Covid efficacy,” the story here continues to be a mixed bag.
An overview of this bag was provided by the UKHSA earlier this year. Apart from a somewhat dispensable, survey-based study in Israel, none of the prior studies offer what I would call very strong support for the effect of Covid-vaccination on reducing long-term symptoms (and so, the TriNetX study is the first one, and it is strong but flawed).
Also unclear, is whether Omicron has altered the landscape in this regard, leading to lessened “protection” (if there really was any) or even a negative effect (via disease enhancement, or a non-paradoxical priming of spike-related illness).
Also unclear, is whether the “protection” is worth the cost, or just what the cost is, in terms of Covid-vaccine-induced long-term symptoms. Again, the authors of this paper could have measured and presented outcomes following TriNetX recorded Covid-vaccination itself; they chose not to.
And so on both these counts we are left, again, in the realm of anecdotes. The blogger who goes by “DoorlessCarp” recently highlighted a telling example, from author Rose George, in DC’s super-post about Long Covid therapeutics:
George, 52 years old and until now an avid marathoner, takes to the Guardian to detail the months of debilitating symptoms that she has experienced since developing “Long Covid” in January of this year (when Delta infection was possible, but BA.1 Omicron was more likely).1
I ran 30 miles a week. I could turn up to a 20-mile fell race on inadequate training and run it, thoughtlessly. I did yoga, weight training and cycling. I had a low resting heart rate and strong biceps. For a 52-year-old menopausal woman, I was in extremely good shape.
But then on 3 January I fell ill with a sore throat, then flu-like weakness, a cough that hasn’t left me since, and a constant and persistent headache that is resistant to every painkiller. In the months since, I have been not ill, but not well. I have days of feeling fine, and then I don’t. As a runner, I can say that long Covid feels like the wall at mile 18 in a marathon, when suddenly your energy has gone, and you feel like a different person and you don’t know why.
Except, in George’s case, her initial illness was not accompanied by a positive test for SARS-CoV-2.
My long Covid is suspected by my GP, since I never actually tested positive, but many on the forums had only mild infections and are still suffering.
The wording, “never tested positive,” further suggests that testing occurred, though maybe well after the actual acute phase of infection (whereas for my own presumed Omicron infection in January, I would use the construction “presumed, because I did not test”).
And so a role of SARS-CoV-2 in George’s illness isn’t even known; she may be in the smaller, historically precedented group of individuals who experience this condition for myriad other reasons, including other infections.
On the other hand - and what an “other hand” it is - she may simply be experiencing harms from the Covid vaccine she received in November, as DoorlessCarp revealed through some twitter-snooping:
This could be a direct or indirect harm. Potentially, innate immune suppression from the Covid-vaccines could make recipients vulnerable to novel infections or reversals of dormant infections that lead to the same symptoms described as Long Covid; implying that George’s injection in November left her susceptible to the onset of these symptoms resulting from a different bug. Again as highlighted by DoorlessCarp, George’s testing revealed either depletion (as in engagement against infection) or suppression of her innate immune response:
Some measure of innate suppression, leading to opportunistic infection, may also be the case for Long Covid after infection; but it would mean that the “protection” afforded by the Covid vaccines (if still valid in the Omicron era) is achieved by incurring exactly the same risk as infection. Spike protein is not safer in every random corner of body than in the respiratory tract.
For now, whether the Covid vaccines prevent or aggravate the mysterious phenomenon of Long Covid, and to what degree for either, remains an open question. Perhaps it will do so forever.
If you derived value from this post, please drop a few coins in your fact-barista’s tip jar.
George, Rose. “I was a marathon runner with killer biceps – long Covid has stopped me in my tracks.” (2022, May 1.) The Guardian.
First off, "killer biceps" is highly subjective and they didn't even use a picture for us to judge! Rude, The Guardian!
But anyways, I am always hesitant about these articles. They're always using any method they can to shame people into vaccination, and this is just one of those ways to say "hey, you fit people are going to suffer!" Although, as you commented it may be a possible vaccine adverse reaction?
I'm always curious where the possible innate immune dysfunction claims come from. Maybe I'm not paying enough attention or looked at studies enough, but there is an idea of coinfection with COVID so I wonder if it could be something with the spike protein and innate immune suppression?
That you take the the time to apply your exquisite and beautiful logic to their heresy is becoming for me, heresy. They do not deserve us, I see this now....