While most people who are affected by COVID-19 will later test negative and recover, there are some that still suffer from lingering symptoms. A few who suffered from “long-haulers” found relief after receiving the vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed shortness of breath, coughing, joint pain, and chest pain as the most common long-term symptoms among an undetermined percentage of people who contracted yet later tested negative for COVID-19.
Program director of the Critical Illness and COVID-19 Survivorship Program Dr. Jason Maley has also discovered long-hauler symptoms also consists of “brain fog”, an elevated heart rate with no activity, severe fatigue, pins and needle pain in the hands and feet. The vaccine at the moment is preparing the body to fight off future infections by providing it with a supply of “memory” blood cells to fight off future COVID-19 infections and may help with these symptoms.
The vaccine appears to lessen or end long haul symptoms, but it is not known or understood completely. Dr. Maley says it could be that an immune response is triggered to fight off infection. There are theories of particle remnants in the blood or hyper-immune response occurs that the vaccine may support recovery, but nothing is fully determined yet.