Trump’s Covid Views Don’t Track With Reality That Recent Studies Suggest
More than two years after the Covid pandemic officially ended, a growing body of research continues to reveal information about the virus and its ability to cause harm long after initial infections have resolved. The findings raise new concerns about the Trump administration’s decision to scale back recommendations on who should get Covid vaccines and halt funding for the development of more protective vaccines.
Covid, for example, is now linked in studies to possible autism in children whose mothers were infected during pregnancy, as well as a decline in mental cognition and an increased risk of heart problems. It has even been shown to trigger the awakening of dormant cancer cells in people in remission.
Policies around covid and vaccination have economic ramifications. The average annual burden of long-term health effects from the disease is estimated at $9,000 per patient in the United States, according to a report published in November in the journal NPJ Primary Care Respiratory Medicine. In this country, the annual shortfall is estimated at around 170 billion dollars.
The virus that causes covid, SARS-CoV-2, leaves damage that can persist for months or even years. In the brain, the virus causes an immune response that triggers inflammation, can damage brain cells and even reduce brain volume, according to a review of imaging studies published in March 2022 in the journal Nature.
Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist who has studied the long-term health effects of covid, estimated that the virus may have increased the number of adults in the United States with an IQ below 70 from 4.7 million to 7.5 million — a jump from 2.8 million adults facing “a level of cognitive impairment that requires significant societal support,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, data from more than a dozen studies suggests that Covid vaccines may help reduce the risk of serious infection as well as longer-term 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 guidance limiting vaccines to people 65 and older and people 6 months or older with at least one risk factor, although many states continue to make them more widely available.
