Your risk of developing long Covid is significantly lower in the wake of an infection with Omicron than with previous variants.
This is the conclusion of a study by researchers from Germany who studied data on the infection history, vaccination status and post-infection status of 11,000 people.
The team also found that one’s risk of long-term effects from a re-infection with COVID-19 are lower if one did not develop long Covid following the initial infection.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), some 10–20 percent of individuals with Covid go on to develop long Covid.
Common symptoms of long Covid include severe fatigue, headaches and shortness of breath.
The study was undertaken by Sophie Diexer of the University Medicine Halle, Germany,and her colleagues.
Diexer said: “We wanted to understand the connection between long Covid and different coronavirus variants, vaccinations and past infections.
“Our study shows that the percentage of people who develop long Covid symptoms after an infection was lowest at the time when Omicron was prevalent.”
Specifically, the team found that the risk of long Covid appears to be three-to-four times lower after a case of Omicron than the original, “wild type”, strain of SARS-CoV-2 — which caused persisting symptoms in half of all cases.
The team cautioned, however, that the majority of infections occurred in the period when the Omicron variant was dominant.
Diexer said: “In purely numerical terms, this means that most people developed long Covid following an Omicron infection.”
The analysis also indicated that patients who had easily recovered from a covid infection may benefit from a protective effect against long Covid in the future.
Diexer said: “People who did not develop persistent symptoms after their initial infection had a significantly lower risk of developing long COVID following re-infection than people who were infected with the coronavirus for the first time.”
She added: “We were surprised by the scale of this effect.”
The researchers were unable to demonstrate that vaccines had a protective effect against long Covid in the event of a vaccine breakthrough.
Given the timing of the study, it was not possible for the researchers to analyze the effects of the vaccine developed specifically to combat the Omicron variant.
The study made use of data from “DigiHero”, a Germany-wide project in which more than 48.000 people had enrolled by the June of last year.
Participants are asked to complete online surveys on various health issues — including chronic disease, healthy aging, and coronavirus.
Professor Rafael Mikolajczyk of the University Medicine Halle said: “Studies have already looked at the relationship between the risk of long Covid and the different variants, but none has taken into account infection history.
“Of the respondents, approximately 11,000 reported at least one coronavirus infection that had occurred in the 12 weeks prior to when the data was collected for our study.
“Classification was based on the predominant variant at the time of the reported infection.”
Each subject was asked about 24 typical long Covid symptoms — which were experienced by 2,822 of those polled. Of these, 14 percent had severe fatigue, 8 percent severe headaches, and 7 percent severe shortness of breath.
According to the researchers, the intensity of these symptoms was not found to be related to the coronavirus variant in question.
With their initial study complete, the researchers are now undertaking follow-up surveys to explore for how long, exactly, long Covid symptoms last.
Mikolajczyk added: “In addition to possible long-term symptoms following a coronavirus infection, DigiHero is addressing a wide range of health issues and other impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The full findings of the study were published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.
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