Risk of Long COVID in People Infected With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 After 2 Doses of a Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccine: Community-Based, Matched Cohort Study

Daniel Ayoubkhani; Matthew L Bosworth; Sasha King; Koen B Pouwels; Myer Glickman; Vahé Nafilyan; Francesco Zaccardi; Kamlesh Khunti; Nisreen A Alwan; A Sarah Walker

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofac464

Risk of Long COVID in People Infected With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 After 2 Doses of a Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccine: Community-Based, Matched Cohort Study

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Sep 12;9(9):ofac464. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac464. eCollection 2022 Sep.

Authors

Daniel Ayoubkhani^{1

2}, Matthew L Bosworth¹, Sasha King³, Koen B Pouwels^{4

5}, Myer Glickman¹, Vahé Nafilyan^{1

6}, Francesco Zaccardi², Kamlesh Khunti², Nisreen A Alwan^{7

8

9}, A Sarah Walker^{4

10}

Affiliations

¹ Health Analysis and Life Events Division, Office for National Statistics, Newport, United Kingdom.
² Leicester Real World Evidence Unit, Diabetes Research Centre, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom.
³ Methodology and Quality Directorate, Office for National Statistics, London, United Kingdom.
⁴ National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
⁵ Health Economics Research Centre, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
⁶ Faculty of Public Health, Environment and Society, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
⁷ School of Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom.
⁸ National Institute for Health Research Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, United Kingdom.
⁹ National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration Wessex, Southampton, United Kingdom.
¹⁰ Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

Abstract

We investigated long COVID incidence by vaccination status in a random sample of UK adults from April 2020 to November 2021. Persistent symptoms were reported by 9.5% of 3090 breakthrough severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infections and 14.6% of unvaccinated controls (adjusted odds ratio, 0.59 [95% confidence interval, .50-.69]), emphasizing the need for public health initiatives to increase population-level vaccine uptake.

Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus; long COVID; post-COVID condition; vaccination.