I'm Stephanie Armour, a KFF Health News senior correspondent in Washington, D.C., covering health policy and the people behind it. Send tips to sarmour@kff.org.
By Stephanie Armour
More than two years since the official end of the covid pandemic, a growing body of research continues to reveal information about the virus and its ability to cause harm long after initial infections resolve. The findings raise fresh concerns about the Trump administration's decision to reduce recommendations about who should get covid vaccines and halt funding for the development of more-protective shots.
Covid, for instance, is now linked in studies to possible autism in children of mothers who were infected during pregnancy, as well as a decline in mental cognition and greater risk of heart problems. It's even been shown to trigger the awakening of dormant cancer cells in people who are in remission.
Policies around covid and vaccination have economic ramifications. The annual average burden of the disease's long-term health effects is estimated at $9,000 per patient in the U.S., according to a report published in November in the journal NPJ Primary Care Respiratory Medicine. In this country, the annual lost earnings are estimated to be about $170 billion.
The virus that causes covid, SARS-CoV-2, leaves damage that can linger for months and sometimes years. In the brain, the virus leads to an immune response that triggers inflammation, can damage brain cells, and can even shrink brain volume, according to research on imaging studies published in March 2022 in the journal Nature.
Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist who has studied longer-term health effects from covid, estimated the virus may have increased the number of adults in the U.S. with an IQ less than 70 from 4.7 million to 7.5 million — a jump of 2.8 million adults dealing with "a level of cognitive impairment that requires significant societal support," he wrote.
Meanwhile, data from more than a dozen studies suggests covid vaccines can help reduce risk of severe infection as well as longer-lasting health effects, although researchers say more study is needed. But last May, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on X that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would stop recommending covid shots for healthy children and pregnant women, citing a lack of clinical data. The FDA has since issued new guidelines limiting the vaccines to people 65 and older and individuals 6 months or older with at least one risk factor, though many states continue to make them more widely available.
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