As far as I understand it from my own reading, although I'm sorry I don't recall where I read this, the mRNA vaccine is not thought to help prevent long covid. Also, as you stated earlier, the mRNA vaccine is not as effective against getting sick with Delta as it was against getting sick with the original virus, although it's highly effective against serious illness from both. Meanwhile, the Delta variant is now taking a toll on younger, unvaccinated people who are getting intubed in higher numbers than they were from original Covid.TheBrain wrote:BTW, Dr. Malone got the virus early last year and developed long-haul Covid. A rumor going around at that time was that the vaccine would help with long-haul Covid, so he got the vaccine himself, even though he had natural infection. The vaccine didn't help with that, and he now has additional long-lasting effects to deal with.
In my mind this supports the need for herd immunity with far fewer deaths through vaccination in order to prevent so many variants from forming that the vaccine may be less effective against. The mRNA vaccines are much more effective against the original Covid virus than the flu vaccine is against flu viruses. (It think it's something like 95% vs. 55% respectively.) Because the flu vaccine is so much less effective (though still helpful) every year they have to recreate it to address new variants, and even then its effectiveness is hit or miss, and sometimes just boils down to reducing symptoms. If everyone had been fully vaccinated against the original Covid with the mRNA vaccines, then there would be scarce (if any?) variants to deal with due to its much higher 95% effectiveness at producing herd immunity at the outset.
Again, sorry I don't have cites. The news gets the least of my attention these days.