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by cerradokids 1312 days ago
Where did you get that data?

According to this study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35456309/ there is no increase in Myocarditis cases among unvaccinated people who have contracted Covid-19. This study tracked 196,992 people which is a huge number, so the data here is quite good and clear. Contracting Covid-19 does not put you at increased risk for Myocarditis, the same cannot be said when evaluating a population that simply received the vaccination.

3 comments

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01630-0)

> We estimated extra myocarditis events to be between 1 and 10 per million persons in the month following vaccination, which was substantially lower than the 40 extra events per million persons observed following SARS-CoV-2 infection.

and they include a brief literature review:

> Our findings are consistent with those from a case-control study of 884,828 persons receiving the BNT162b2 vaccine in Israel21. That study observed an association with myocarditis in the 42 days following vaccination (risk ratio of 3.24), but no association with pericarditis or cardiac arrhythmia. Two further studies from Israel add to our observations by providing clinical review to ensure robust case ascertainment22 and reporting investigations and outcomes in individual patients with myocarditis following the BNT162b2 vaccine23. Witberg et al.21,22 observed a small excess in events 3–5 days following the second dose of BNT162b2 vaccine, but most were mild presentations and just one classified as fulminant22. Mevorach et al. observed an incidence ratio of 5.34 for myocarditis in 5,442,696 persons following BNT162b2, although this was attenuated when restricted to the 136 definite and probable cases of myocarditis23. Risk of myocarditis was restricted to males under the age of 40 years and only observed following the second dose. Similarly, two studies from the United States have reported an incident rate ratio of 2.7 for myocarditis in the 10 days following the second dose of both mRNA vaccines24 and an estimated 6.3 and 10.1 extra cases per million doses in the 1- to 21-day period following the first and second dose of both mRNA vaccines, respectively, in those younger than 40 years25.

And conclude:

> In summary, this population-based study quantifies for the first time the risk of several rare cardiac adverse events associated with three COVID-19 vaccines as well as SARS-CoV-2 infection. Vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 in adults was associated with a small increase in the risk of myocarditis within a week of receiving the first dose of both adenovirus and mRNA vaccines, and after the second dose of both mRNA vaccines. By contrast, SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a substantial increase in the risk of hospitalization or death from myocarditis, pericarditis and cardiac arrhythmia.

This study is, actually, irrelevant to disproving the claim above.

It checks for the myocarditis infection from COVID-19, but it doesn't actually control for vaccination status. The people studied either are believed to have been COVID-19 infected, or had been vaccinated, but there was no designated unvaccinated control group.

In which case, you are potentially using "breakthrough cases" of COVID-19 causing Myocarditis to make your point (assuming they would be the same pre- and post- vaccination), rather than a definitive look at people who did not get the vaccine and how they fared. All the study proves is that COVID-19 infections cause increased Myocarditis... in vaccinated people. If you assume that COVID-19 has the same Myocarditis effect in vaccinated and unvaccinated people, it works; but if you accept that maybe the effects of COVID-19 are different in vaccinated people, it could fall apart, which is why the study about how Myocarditis doesn't seem to effect the 160,000+ unvaccinated people studied still has value.

Update by the same authors:

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA....

Risk of myocarditis following infection before vaccination was 11.14 [95% CI, 8.64–14.36] greater than the risk of vaccination, and risk of myocarditis following infection after vaccination was 5.97 [95% CI, 4.54–7.87] greater than the vaccination itself.

Easier to digest press release:

https://newsroom.heart.org/news/myocarditis-risk-significant...

Well 200k is not very much.

The German vaccine watchdog issue a warning letter because there were roughly 300 cases in total reported for the approx. 200m doses administered until May 2021 in the entire EU.

Myocarditis/pericarditis are very rare and the effects for young people were mild.

There is no such thing as "mild" heart damage.

Moreover, clinical myocarditis and pericarditis are only tips of the iceberg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vveMHtVk_mY

People who have no significant symptoms can still have troponin in their blood, indicating damage.

I suppose this is where someone who actually knows what they are talking about should chime in. Myocarditis is actually extremely serious, whether deemed "mild" or not. Once an inner chamber or valve in the heart has been inflamed, the damage is permanent and that area is hardened from scar tissue or fibrosis, which is not reversible. Pericarditis (which I've had for many years since being a young person) isn't as serious, but it will cause hardening just the same.

More often than not it goes away on its own, but the sad thing is there is no surefire way to treat either condition. I've been to the best pericarditis/myocarditis doctors in the world, and I'll let you in on a secret - even these people don't know. Docs will throw Ibuprofen, Colchicine and steroids at it, maybe an experimental drug, or sometimes will just take that portion of the pericardium out. If it's myocarditis, well then, hopefully the medication works.

Like I said, the damage is irreversible. A year or two have passed for some of these kids. Many of them won't experience the long term effects until much later in life, or when it recurs. Just like the scar forms on the outside of the body, scarring forms on the areas damaged in the heart. A young person's heart isn't going to feel the immediate effects, but over the course of 10/20/30 years, quite the opposite.

I'm not anti or pro COVID vax as there is no reason to be tribal here, but there was definitely a more pragmatic path than simply vaccinating everyone. The logical side of my head says these kids were unjustly exposed to a risk they never should have been exposed to. It just doesn't make any sense why a healthy kid should take a vaccine when they could still spread COVID. We were all in the dark about this at that time, but the lack of debate and long term studies should have at least raised some kind of flag for people, especially the average Hackers News user. You cited 300 cases in 200 million like it's no big deal, but that is not justification for the 300 families or parents who voluntarily or forcefully exposed their children to this vaccination. Even if it's just a blip, it's 300 too much, not to mention all the cases across the world.

And why would you know more about this than the next internet stranger?

And again: becoming exposed to Covid without vaccination has even higher risk for myocarditis.

I'm chiming in to your intellectually lazy comment claiming any kind of myocardits being mild, so I can guarantee it's at least one internet stranger. Also, I never claimed being exposed to COVID without vaccination doesn't carry higher risk. It feels as though you are attempting some kind of HS debate class tactic here, so I'll give you an upvote for your efforts.
Well thank you. It was obviously intellectually lazy of me to say that the myocarditis in young people were mild without any qualifying term such generally. And indeed the German vaccine watchdog from which I was quoting from memory uses 'primarily mild' to describe the myocarditis cases identified to coincide with vaccination.

https://www.pei.de/EN/newsroom/dossier/coronavirus/coronavir...

Still I thing the whole thread of discussions shows that people are afraid of something which isn't such a big deal.

Of note is that this study is based on PCR tests. We would need a blood tests for more accuracy to ensure no historical infection took place. This also doesn't compare vaccinated infected vs unvaccinated infections.

It's a decent data point but not conclusive.