Some people have recovered from COVID-19 within 2-4 weeks, while others have had “long COVID” and experienced symptoms for longer.
Long COVID is known as having the same or new symptoms for more than 4 weeks after a COVID-19 diagnosis.
Researchers used nearly 300,000 health records to look at both vaccinated and unvaccinated people with mild symptoms of COVID who were never hospitalized and were followed for 1 year.
They learned that people infected with COVID-19 had symptoms of loss of taste and smell, concentration and memory problems, difficulty breathing, weakness, tonsillitis and more.
Having difficulty breathing was the most common symptom that people with long COVID had.
And those who were vaccinated had less of a risk of breathing difficulties compared to those who were unvaccinated.
We can still be at risk for COVID-19 even if we are vaccinated, but now we know that being protected with the vaccine may help to improve the severity and duration of our symptoms if we get infected.
