Strain, William David, Sherwood, Ondine, Banerjee, Amitava et al. · Vaccines · 2022 · DOI
This survey asked 812 people with long COVID about how COVID-19 vaccination affected their symptoms. Overall, 58% reported feeling better after vaccination, 18% felt worse, and the rest noticed no change. People who received mRNA vaccines (like Pfizer and Moderna) tended to see more improvement than those who received other types of vaccines. However, responses varied greatly from person to person.
Many people with long COVID—including those with ME/CFS—were concerned that COVID vaccination might worsen their symptoms by overstimulating their immune system. This study provides real-world evidence that vaccination was associated with symptom improvement in most long COVID patients, potentially reducing vaccine hesitancy in this vulnerable population and informing treatment discussions.
This observational survey cannot prove that vaccination caused the symptom improvements observed, as there was no control group and responses may reflect natural symptom fluctuation, placebo effect, or other unmeasured factors. The self-reported nature of the data and selection bias (participants willing to complete surveys) limit generalizability. Individual responses varied substantially, so the average finding does not predict any individual patient's outcome.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Strain, William David, Sherwood, Ondine, Banerjee, Amitava, Van der Togt, Vicky, Hishmeh, Lyth, & Rossman, Jeremy (2022). The Impact of COVID Vaccination on Symptoms of Long COVID: An International Survey of People with Lived Experience of Long COVID.. Vaccines. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10050652
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-strain-2022-impact-covid,
author = {Strain, William David and Sherwood, Ondine and Banerjee, Amitava and Van der Togt, Vicky and Hishmeh, Lyth and Rossman, Jeremy},
title = {The Impact of COVID Vaccination on Symptoms of Long COVID: An International Survey of People with Lived Experience of Long COVID.},
journal = {Vaccines},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.3390/vaccines10050652},
note = {PubMed: 35632408},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/strain-2022-impact-covid},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/strain-2022-impact-covid
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