JustCare

Tag: Long Covid

  • Get your Covid vaccine: Reduce your risk of long Covid

    Get your Covid vaccine: Reduce your risk of long Covid

    Pam Belluck reports for the New York Times on new findings showing that people who get Covid-19 vaccines reduce their risk of long Covid. Long Covid can cause serious symptoms such as exhaustion and brain fog.

    Dr. Clifford Rosen writes in the New England Journal of Medicine that people in the United States who had been vaccinated for Covid had a much smaller chance of developing long Covid than people who were not vaccinated.

    Vaccines keep people from getting super sick when they are infected with Covid. And, people who get long Covid tend to be people who become severely sick from Covid.

    That said, some people who only have minor symptoms from Covid also get long Covid. And, some people who are vaccinated still get long Covid. Getting a vaccine will not always prevent you from getting long Covid.

    Rosen’s team looked at millions of medical records, including the records of 450,000 people who had Covid between March 1, 2020 and the end of January 2022. They were not able to look at different subpopulations. They looked at data from the Veterans Administration, which keeps good data, but treats mostly older white men.

    Long Covid was least evident in the last two months of the study among vaccinated people who got Covid. Only 3.5 percent had long Covid at that time. Among unvaccinated people who were infected with Covid at the same time, the incidence of long Covid was 7.8 percent.

    The researchers underscore that. over time, the efficacy of the Covid vaccine diminishes. People need yearly vaccines. Without vaccines, the incidence of long Covid will rise.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • What’s long flu and are you at risk?

    What’s long flu and are you at risk?

    Over the last few years, we’ve heard a lot about people with “long Covid,” who cannot shed the Covid virus and develop chronic and serious symptoms that can last a long time. We’ve heard little about “long flu,” another chronic condition that can develop after having had a bad case of influenza. Time Magazine reports on a study published in The Lancet on the risks of long flu for older adults.

    Nearly one in seven people who get Covid end up with long Covid. Who ends up with long flu and what are the consequences? Relative to Covid, it appears that long flu is less severe. You are less likely to die and you are less likely to experience scores of challenging symptoms that many people with long Covid experience, including exhaustion, brain fog, breathing issues, heart issues and gastrointestinal issues.

    Though long Covid symptoms are worse and more plentiful than long flu symptoms, long flu symptoms are nothing to sneeze at. (Pun intended). It’s common to experience long flu symptoms. Researchers found 615 health issues for every 100 people they studied with Covid and 537 health issues for every 100 people they studied with the flu. All of the people studied had been hospitalized for their conditions, and they were all older, with an average age of 70.

    The Lancet study findings are aligned with earlier findings. In a 2021 study of people, some of whom were hospitalized and some not, about four in ten of those with influenza continued to experience at least one long Covid symptom in the six months following their influenza.

    To protect yourself, get your vaccines–Medicare covers them–wear a mask when you are surrounded by other people, and stay home when you are feeling ill.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • People with long Covid struggle to get disability benefits

    People with long Covid struggle to get disability benefits

    Amanda Morris writes for the New York Times on the difficulty people with long-term side effects of Covid are facing getting disability benefits. People with “long Covid” can have serious health issues and might not be able to work. They need disability benefits, including health care and housing.

    The issue is that the Social Security Administration wants proof of long-term disability in order to award benefits. But, the side effects of long Covid are not easy to prove. Often lab tests show that things look normal. People do not have specific medical evidence to support their claims for disability benefits.

    President Biden, for his part, has promised “to make sure Americans with long Covid who have a disability have access to the rights and resources that are due under the disability law.” But, how is long Covid diagnosed without medical evidence? Moreover, to qualify for Social Security disability benefits you need to be able to show that you cannot work for at least a year.

    An estimated three to ten million Americans could have long Covid, according to the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. These people are still getting care for several different medical conditions long after they were diagnosed with Covid-19.

    To date, about 16,000 Americans have been able to prove that they have long Covid to the Social Security Administration. It’s early days, since it takes about five months for Social Security to make a disability determination. To make matters worse, the Trump Administration underfunded the Social Security Administration. President Biden has proposed that Congress allocate $1.3 billion additional dollars to it.

    Today, about 9.5 million workers and their families receive Social Security disability benefits. Benefits tend to average $1,280 a month. People receiving Social Security disability benefits also qualify for Medicare.

    Of course, if everyone in the US had Medicare, it would be a huge help to people with long Covid. These days, Medicare for all seems more like a dream. Instead, millions of Americans are living a nightmare.

    Here’s more from Just Care: