Many studies have already demonstrated the benefits of vaccination in preventing Covid-19 infection and mitigating its worst effects.

However, a new paper published on Wednesday might give vaccinated individuals a pause when considering whether it is time to relax precautions against the disease.

The study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that some fully vaccinated individuals have reported Long Covid-19 symptoms even six weeks after their initial infection.

The study involved 11,453 fully vaccinated healthcare workers working at the Sheba Medical Centre, Israel, and ran for 14 weeks beginning Jan 20, just as the first vaccine recipients at the facility became fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The study was originally conceived to search for factors that may lead to breakthrough Covid-19 infections – ie Covid-19 infections that occur despite full vaccination.

By the end of the study on April 28, they identified only 39 such cases.

One-third of these cases had no symptoms in the entire duration of their infection, while the remaining two-thirds had mild symptoms, such as congestion, myalgia, loss of sense of smell or taste and cough.

None of them required hospitalisation.

During follow-up questioning, however...