The World Health Organization has fielded criticism from many conservatives since the global pandemic, one for acting to slowly to sound the alarm about coronavirus and also for having close ties to China.

Taro Aso, Japan’s deputy prime minister, said that some people even started referring to WHO as The Chinese Health Organization.

The world health body does deserve credit, however, for recent revelations about the long-term symptoms of the vaccinations.

According to an Associated Press datelined story filed during a conference in Tel Aviv last week, new research suggests at least 17 million people in the European Union may have experienced long COVID-19 symptoms during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although most people who have COVID-19 have fully recovered, WHO in Europe estimates that 10-to-20 percent develop mid-and long-term symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness and cognitive dysfunction.

According to Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, millions of people in the region straddling Europe and Central Asia are suffering debilitating symptoms many months after their initial COVID-19 infection.

Research also suggests that women are twice as likely as men to experience long COVID-19 effects, and the risk increases dramatically among severe infections needing hospitalization.

It was also reported that a U.S. study of veterans published in Nature Medicine in May provided fresh evidence that long COVID-19 can happen even after breakthrough infections in vaccinated people, and that older adults face higher risks for the long-term effects.

A separate report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that up to a year after an initial coronavirus infection, 1 in 4 adults aged 65 and older had at least one potential long COVID-19 health problem, compared with 1 in 5 younger adults.

AARP, however, states on its website that COVID-19 is still sending more than 4,000 Americans to the hospital each day, and that experts expect the new boosters will help prevent that number from spiking.

Projections show, its says, that if the same number of people who get the annual flu shot get an updated COVID-19 booster this fall, it could prevent as many as 100,000 hospitalizations and 9,000 deaths.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has been critical of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for failing to report to the public on the adverse effects of the vaccine, stating in a letter to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky that data should be made public immediately about vaccine risks.

Walensky replied in a letter the use of the data mining method by the CDC, but Johnson called her response “inadequate and unacceptable” since it failed to provide the data that it supposedly generated to track vaccine adverse events.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has garnered headlines for his relentless grilling of Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, on whether or not members of the FDA vaccine advisory board were receiving royalty payments from pharmaceutical companies.

Paul has also questioned the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines, calling it medical malpractice to force vaccines on children, particularly since the scientific evidence shows the risk of myocarditis for young males is greater for the vaccine than it is for the disease.

During a hearing in June, Fauci admitted that there were no studies to support the claim that booster shots would reduce the risk of hospitalization and death in children.

With all the unknowns surrounding the long-term effects of the pandemic, people who have legitimate questions about any possible side effects of booster shots can’t be ignored.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.