Some people who have spent months suffering from long-haul covid-19 are taking to social media to report their delight at seeing their symptoms disappear after their vaccinations, leaving experts chasing yet another puzzling clinical development surrounding the disease caused by the coronavirus.
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Those questions include: If long-haulers are suffering from immune systems that went awry and never reset, why would vaccines — which rev up the immune system — help some of them? Are reservoirs of coronavirus hiding in the body? Are some long-haulers experiencing a placebo effect from the vaccine?
[Arianna] Eisenberg, who said she had a mild case of covid-19 last summer, doesn’t believe the placebo theory fits because she had no expectation that the vaccine would help with her debilitating symptoms. She was immunized because tests did not detect antibodies to the virus in her blood and she was terrified that she could be reinfected. She received her second shot of the Moderna vaccine on Feb. 5.
“I didn’t expect the vaccine to do this,” she said. “It is possible. The mind is a very powerful thing.”
