The good news is a recent study suggests that vaccination lowers the chances you will get long COVID dramatically, especially if someone has had 4 doses of vaccine. In a Brazilian study, the frequency of long COVID was estimated in medical workers who were infected after they had no, one, two, three, or four doses of vaccine–that is, after how many doses did their first infection occur. Amazingly, the fourth dose has a huge (YOOGE!) effect, lowering long COVID by somewhere between 81 – 99% compared to unvaccinated people (the point estimate was 95%; OR = 0.05).

That’s the good news. The bad news is that still means somewhere between 0.5% to 3% of infected people with four vaccine doses will still contract long COVID (unfortunately, there is no analysis looking at the effect of dosing on long COVID symptoms).

We really need to push on Congress and the Biden administration to develop the next generation of vaccines, which, hopefully, will better limit spread and the onset of long COVID. I guess the pandemic is over–unless you get long COVID, then it’s definitely not. You’re not the weirdo if you’re trying to avoid getting (re)infected.