A Feb. 15 report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms that the prevalence of Long COVID exceeded 8.8 percent in several states.
What is not mentioned in the study is the vaccination status of the participants.
Long COVID, or long haul COVID, includes such things as fatigue, respiratory symptoms, and neurologic symptoms. These conditions surface, persist, or return following the contraction of an acute COVID-19 infection.
According to the CDC’s study, the highest percentage of long COVID was found in West Virginia, where 10.6 percent of survey participants reported suffering long-term effects of the coronavirus in 2022.
In Alabama and Montana, long COVID symptoms were reported by 9.8 percent of the state’s survey respondents.
Other states with cases of long COVID exceeding eight percent included North Dakota (9.3 percent), Oklahoma (9.1 percent), Wyoming (9.0 percent), Tennessee (8.9 percent), and Mississippi (8.7 percent). Iowa, South Dakota, and Utah each had long COVID symptoms reported by 8.3 percent of their respondents.
The national average was 6.9 percent.
Questions to the CDC
The Epoch Times reached out to the CDC about the findings of its study.
Among the questions was, “What are the implications of having so many cases of long COVID being reported?”
Nicole Ford, the corresponding author of the report, replied by email, saying, “Long COVID can include a wide range of ongoing health problems; these conditions can last weeks, months, or years.
“CDC and partners are working to understand more about who experiences long COVID and why, including whether groups disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 are at higher risk.”
“Long COVID can also significantly impact people’s daily activities,” she added, recalling how the CDC “previously reported that 1 in 4 adults currently experiencing long COVID reported significant activity limitations.”
Asked if long COVID rates have been increasing or declining since 2022, Ms. Ford said, “One study showed prevalence of long COVID in U.S. adults decreased from June 1-13, 2022, to June 7-19, 2023. However, long COVID prevalence stabilized and remained unchanged after January 2023. More research is needed to better understand overall changes in the year-to-year rates of long COVID.”
Ms. Ford did not address the question regarding the CDC’s admission that “information about COVID-19 vaccination” among the survey participants was “not included” in the report.
Definitions of Long COVID and Vaccine Injury ‘So Vague’
Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center recently told Fox News that “multiple studies have shown that at least three shots decreases the risk of long COVID significantly,” and that obesity “increases risk of severe COVID dramatically, and severe COVID correlates with persistent symptoms and long COVID.”
Known data appears to support his opinion.
A study released on Feb. 20 by the Global Center for Health Security reported a 43 percent to 58 percent lower prevalence of long COVID among those who had been vaccinated.
In addition, a Sept. 21, 2023 report by the CDC shows that West Virginia, the state with the most people presenting with long Covid, also has the nation’s highest rate for obesity, 41 percent.
However, during a Jan. 26 press conference at The Villages in Florida, Dr. Marivic Villa said 79 percent of her patients who presented with long COVID had been vaccinated.
Separately, in a Feb. 21 interview with Chris Cuomo on News Nation, Dr. Robin Foreman Rose of Terrain Health—Mr. Cuomo’s personal physician—said that it has been her experience, as well as that of many of her colleagues, that many who had long COVID and got vaccinated “actually got worse instead of better.”
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Dr. Rose, a long COVID specialist, reiterated that statement.
“I have not had one patient come through my door, and I don’t think the vast majority of my colleagues have, that has said their long COVID symptoms got better after they got vaccinated,” she said.
Asked why studies like that of the CDC contradict what she and other physicians are seeing in her patients, Dr. Rose suggested, “Maybe there’s bias in who they are talking to.”
“The question is, what is the definition of long COVID?” she said. “Is the CDC considering people that develop autoimmune disease or turbo cancers after exposure to the virus or the vaccine? We’re seeing all these different things happening, heart attacks, strokes, in people who were otherwise healthy. What constitutes long COVID or vaccine injury? It’s so vague.”
“What are the questions they are asking these people and are they establishing a timeline?” she questioned further. “Is there a temporal relationship between the time they were exposed to the virus or the vaccine and the onset of symptoms?”
The CDC’s study does not provide any of this information.
The CDC only said the study “analyzed data from non-institutionalized U.S. adults aged ≥18 years participating in the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a population-based cross-sectional survey.”
It said the study “did not capture treatment during acute COVID infection, time since COVID-19 illness, or duration or severity of symptoms, which could influence the reported prevalence of long COVID.”
“I would be curious to know what questions they asked and what was the criteria that qualifies a person as having long COVID,” Dr. Rose said.
Asked to specifically identify the difference between “long COVID” and “vaccine injured” is, Dr. Rose said, “not much.”
“Symptoms evolve into conditions,” she conceded, suggesting that “the line between long COVID and vaccine injury is starting to blur.”