For a majority of people, the COVID vaccine doesn’t cause adverse health effects — but a small percentage experience chronic symptoms that can last for months or even years. 

Yale researchers recently made some discoveries about why certain people experience this condition, which they have dubbed “post-vaccination syndrome” (PVS).

In early findings, the team recognized “potential immunological patterns” that are unique to people with PVS. The hope is that this discovery will help to enable future treatments and therapies for those who are affected.

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“This work is still in its early stages, and we need to validate these findings,” said co-senior study author Akiko Iwasaki, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine, in a press release.

“But this is giving us some hope that there may be something that we can use for diagnosis and treatment of PVS down the road.”

Symptoms of post-vaccination syndrome

People with this condition may suffer from excessive fatigue, exercise intolerance, brain fog, insomnia and dizziness, according to the Yale researchers. 

These typically develop within a day or two of vaccination and can worsen over time.

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“It’s clear that some individuals are experiencing significant challenges after vaccination. Our responsibility as scientists and clinicians is to listen to their experiences, rigorously investigate the underlying causes, and seek ways to help,” said co-senior author Harlan Krumholz, professor of cardiology at YSM, in the release.

“Post-vaccination syndrome is real, and has been found [to occur] from many vaccines, including COVID,” Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and Fox News senior medical analyst, told Fox News Digital.

What the study found

The researchers analyzed blood samples from 42 study participants who experienced symptoms of PVS and 22 who did not.

Those with symptoms were shown to have lower levels of two types of white blood cells. People with PVS who had never had COVID also had lower levels of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, likely because they tended to have fewer vaccine doses, according to the release.

“Post-vaccination syndrome is real, and has been found [to occur] from many vaccines.”

“Fewer vaccine doses and no viral infection means the body’s immune system has had little opportunity to develop a defense to the virus,” said the researchers.

Some of the people with PVS also had higher levels of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which enables the virus to penetrate and infect host cells. This has also been linked to a higher risk of developing long COVID.

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“We don’t know if the level of spike protein is causing the chronic symptoms, because there were other participants with PVS who didn’t have any measurable spike protein — but it could be one mechanism underlying this syndrome,” said Iwasaki.

People with the syndrome may suffer from excessive fatigue, exercise intolerance, brain fog, insomnia and dizziness, according to the Yale researchers.  (iStock)

In addition to the elevated spike proteins, other factors could increase the risk of post-vaccination syndrome. Those include autoimmunity, tissue damage and reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the researchers wrote.

“Akiko Iwasaka is a world-renowned immunologist at Yale who has studied COVID (and COVID vaccines) extensively,” Siegel pointed out. 

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“In this new study, she reports that in a very small percentage of those who received COVID vaccines (and experienced prolonged side effects), there may be the presence of persistent spike protein,” Siegel confirmed.

“They may also experience immune disruption, which takes the form of elevations in inflammatory immune cells (CD8 and TN alpha) and a decrease in cells that help resolve inflammation and infection (CD4 helper cells).”

“Every medical intervention carries some risk, and it’s important to acknowledge that adverse events can occur with vaccines.” (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo)

The researchers agreed that more studies are essential to guide diagnosis and treatment.

“We’re only just starting to make headway in understanding PVS,” said Krumholz. “Every medical intervention carries some risk, and it’s important to acknowledge that adverse events can occur with vaccines.”

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“Our focus must remain on understanding what these people are experiencing through rigorous science and addressing the needs of those affected with compassion and an open mind.”

Siegel agreed, adding, “This needs to be further studied in terms of understanding how common prolonged COVID vaccine side effects are and how to predict them and treat them.”

This winter marks five years since the onset of COVID-19, the infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that led to a global pandemic and more than 1.2 million deaths in the U.S.

To mark the milestone, Pew Research Center conducted a survey to gauge Americans’ views on the current COVID risk and how the pandemic was handled.

Around 21% of respondents said they still consider COVID-19 to be a “major threat” to the health of the U.S. population, down from 67% in July 2020.

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More than half (56%) of Americans say COVID-19 isn’t something to worry about, with 39% believing people do not take it seriously enough, the survey found.

Around 40% of Americans believe COVID-19 is “no worse” than a cold or flu, while 56% say it is worse than those illnesses, the survey found.

In terms of testing, 63% of people say they should take a COVID test when they feel sick, while one-third say there is “no point” in doing this.

In the event of another pandemic, just over 60% of survey respondents said the public health system would do a “very or somewhat good job” of dealing with a future health emergency.

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When it comes to masking, 80% of Americans say they “rarely or never” wear a mask in stores and businesses, although about 40% would wear them in crowded settings if they were feeling sick.

Forty percent of Americans believe the U.S. would handle a future health emergency better than it handled COVID. In comparison, 16% believe the country would do worse and 43% said the response would be about the same, the survey found.

Mental health impact

Dr. Michael Aziz, a board-certified attending physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, noted the dramatic impact COVID had on mental health.

“Studies observed a higher prevalence of psychopathological symptoms during the pandemic for persons with pre-pandemic mental illness, suggesting that this group experienced a greater burden from the pandemic,” he told Fox News Digital. 

80% of Americans say they “rarely or never” wear a mask in stores and businesses.

Today, five years after the pandemic, Aziz said there are higher rates of depression, isolation and anxiety, something he sees “every day” with his own patients.

“There were also delayed learning abilities in children who were in lockdowns,” the doctor said. “Studies show there were developmental abnormalities from both face masks and lockdowns.”

Lingering health effects

Before the COVID pandemic, the prevalence of obesity was at 11% and 15% among men and women, respectively, according to Aziz. 

During the pandemic, it increased to 25.3% and 42.4% in men and women.

“People neglected their health more when it was supposed to be the opposite,” Aziz told Fox News Digital. “People tended to go for their physicals less often, with remote work being the norm.”

“The government response to COVID taught us that clear, consistent and continuous community engagement is essential.”

Some people have reported COVID symptoms that lasted for months or even years.

“This lingering illness has often been called ‘long COVID’ or ‘post-COVID-19 syndrome,’” Aziz said. 

This condition is also sometimes called “long-haul COVID” or “post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2.”

“Studies show there were developmental abnormalities from both face masks and lockdowns.” (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo)

“It is known that COVID-19 affects older people with higher mortality, but many young people in the U.S. were affected and even died,” Aziz said. “The mortality rates in the U.S. were 10 times higher than Japan and South Korea.”

This means aging is happening at a much younger age in the U.S., according to Aziz. 

“This is not a good thing for future health spans, effect on healthcare or future costs to care for age-related diseases,” he added.

Lessons learned

Since the pandemic, Americans have largely learned that they are responsible for their own health and for “making individual decisions about bolstering their immunity to infectious diseases,” according to Donna Petersen, professor at the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida.

“Individual responsibility for health is important, but collective responsibility for health benefits all of us, whether we choose to take individual responsibility or not,” she told Fox News Digital. 

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Dr. Benjamin Barlow, chief medical officer of American Family Care in Birmingham, Alabama, said the pandemic highlighted how quickly a novel virus can spread and impact a community.

“The pandemic alerted us to the fact that we need to really pay attention to the global health scene and think about how outbreaks in other countries might affect us and start preparing,” he told Fox News Digital.

COVID-19 highlighted the need for medical providers to have access to a greater supply of personal protective equipment and better communication with testing suppliers, one expert said. (Ritzau Scanpix/Nils Meilvang via REUTERS/Files)

COVID-19 also highlighted the need for medical providers to have access to a greater supply of personal protective equipment and better communication with testing suppliers, Barlow noted.

Dr. David Lenihan, CEO and co-founder of Tiber Health, a global medical education startup in New York City, shared his insights on how the country handled the pandemic.

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“The government response to COVID taught us that clear, consistent and continuous community engagement is essential,” Lenihan, who is also the CEO of Ponce Health Sciences University, a medical school with campuses in Puerto Rico, Missouri and the British Virgin Islands, told Fox News Digital. 

Since the pandemic, Americans have largely learned that they are responsible for their own health and for “making individual decisions about bolstering their immunity to infectious diseases,” one doctor said. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“Such connectivity facilitates that when there is a healthcare emergency, enough people know they can trust the guidance of their leaders as well as government departments, organizations and facilities.”

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Another big lesson from the pandemic, according to Lenihan, is that it’s essential for all medical experts and professionals to be “completely transparent” about which specific actions need to be taken for the benefit of society.

Think five minutes isn’t enough time to make a difference in terms of health and well-being?

It could actually be enough time to stave off a disease that afflicts many people in their later years.

Just five minutes of light exercise a day could help prevent dementia, even for frail older adults, new research has found.

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The latest study on the topic was led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. 

They found that engaging in as little as 35 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week — as compared to none at all — was associated with a 41% lower risk of developing dementia over an average four-year follow-up period. 

The findings were published recently in The Journal of the American Medical Directors Association and shared on several medical sites.

Even for people at an elevated risk of “adverse health outcomes,” greater activity was associated with lower dementia risk, the researchers noted.

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The higher amounts of physical activity, the lower the risk of dementia.

Consider this data from the study: Dementia risks were 60% lower in participants who got 35-to-69.9 minutes of physical activity/week; 63% lower in the 70-to-139.9 minutes/week category; and 69% lower in the 140-and-over minutes/week category.

For every additional 30 minutes of weekly moderate to vigorous physical activity, there was a 4% reduction in dementia risk. 

For their analysis, the researchers analyzed a dataset covering nearly 90,000 adults living in the United Kingdom who wore smartwatch-type activity trackers, news agency SWNS reported.

Lead study author Dr. Amal Wanigatunga said, “Our findings suggest that increasing physical activity, even as little as five minutes per day, can reduce dementia risk in older adults.“

“Even frail or nearly frail older adults might be able to reduce their dementia risk through low-dose exercise.” (iStock)

Dementia, usually in the form of Alzheimer’s, affects millions of people all over the globe.

‘Some better than none’

While public health guidelines usually recommend 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, the study aligns with a growing body of evidence supporting a “some-is-better-than-none” approach to physical activity, according to Study Finds.

Participants in the new study had a median age of 63. 

And while the risk of Alzheimer’s increases with age, recent research has suggested it may be somewhat preventable by certain lifestyle changes, including better control of cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar — plus being more active, SWNS noted.

Participants in the new study had a median age of 63. Women made up 56% of the sample. 

Over an average follow-up period of 4.4 years, 735 people among the group developed dementia.

Exercise is well-known to benefit a person’s physical and mental well-being. New research suggests that just five minutes a day of light, low-dose exercise might help reduce the risk of dementia.  (iStock)

Researchers found that for every additional 30 minutes of weekly moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA), there was a 4% reduction in dementia risk. 

But the most “striking” finding came when comparing people who engaged in no physical activity at all to those who managed to get even minimal amounts.

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“This suggests that even frail or nearly frail older adults might be able to reduce their dementia risk through low-dose exercise,” said Wanigatunga.

He noted that the study was not a clinical trial that established causation indicating that exercise reduces dementia risk, but that its findings are consistent with that hypothesis.

“The association between more activity and lower dementia risk remained robust.”

“To check the possibility that their findings reflected undiagnosed dementia leading to lower physical activity,” News Medical reported, “the researchers repeated their analysis but excluded dementia diagnoses in the first two years of follow-up.”

“The association between more activity and lower dementia risk remained robust.”

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Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and Fox News’ senior medical analyst, was not involved in the study but shared his reaction to the “important” findings.

“This is not proof, just an association, but is very useful for the group that gets discouraged, thinking, ‘I can’t do a lot of exercise because of illness or disability, so why do any?’ This study suggests that even small amounts are helpful.”

The beneficial effects could also be tied to healthier lifestyle decisions, a doctor said about the new study’s findings.  (iStock)

There are many mechanisms that could explain this effect, Siegel said – “primarily increased blood flow to the brain, as well as improved disposal of metabolic waste and decreased inflammation.”

He added, “It is also likely associated with healthier lifestyle decisions that also decrease the advent of neuroinflammation, dysregulation and plaque formation that characterize dementia, especially Alzheimer’s.”

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Some of these include sleep, diet and engagement, he said.

The National Institute on Aging provided funding for the new study. 

The discovery of a new bat coronavirus in China has sparked concerns about another pandemic.

The virus, named HKU5-CoV-2, is similar to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in that it targets the same human receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE2), according to a report in the South China Morning Post.

HKU5-CoV-2 could potentially lead to human-to-human or even cross-species transmission, the researchers found.

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The research team was led by Zheng-Li Shi at Guangzhou Laboratory in Guangdong, China. 

Shi, who is known as the “batwoman,” worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, which came under fire as the potential source of COVID-19.

“This study reveals a distinct lineage of HKU5-CoVs in bats that efficiently use human ACE2 and underscores their potential zoonotic risk,” the researchers wrote in the study, which was published in the scientific journal Cell on Feb. 18.

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Researchers from the Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology also contributed.

In the study, HKU5-CoV-2 was found to infect human cells as well as artificially grown lung and intestine tissues, according to reports.

Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology during an investigation of the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, on Feb. 3, 2021. (REUTERS/Thomas Peter)

Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and Fox News senior medical analyst, noted that bats are known to harbor several different species of coronaviruses.

“In this case, Shi-Zhengli discovered that a pipistrellus species of bats is carrying a HKU5-COV2 coronavirus that is a cousin of the MERS virus, which caused a limited outbreak in humans in 2012,” Siegel told Fox News Digital.

“Even as we continue to investigate potential human pathogens, it is very important that we not give in to fear.”

“This particular strain has an ability to bind to the same receptor in the lungs, nose and respiratory passages that allowed SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) to infect humans — so there is a chance of what is known as zoonotic spillover, where this virus could also infect humans and go human to human,” he confirmed.

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The doctor stated, however, that the risk of this happening remains “very low,” as the binding is weaker and the virus is “much less powerful” than SARS-CoV-2.

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“Even as we continue to investigate potential human pathogens, and even as we prepare for possible pandemics, it is very important that we not give in to fear,” Siegel said. 

“The COVID pandemic is the worst in a century, but it doesn’t mean another is about to happen from bird flu or this or anything else.”

The virus, named HKU5-CoV-2, targets the same human receptor as s similar SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. (iStock)

In an ideal scenario, Siegel said, an international consortium of scientists could be established to help provide global protection. 

“That certainly did not happen with the COVID pandemic, and the cloak of secrecy remains,” he said. “But studies like this, published in a prominent journal, are a step in the right direction.”

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“What we know far less about is exactly what research on bat coronaviruses is being conducted in that lab.”