Prolonged exposure to loud sounds, short extremely loud sounds (explosions), ototoxic drugs (some antibiotics, chemo..) and substances (toluene..) and viral infections that spread into inner ear can all cause cochlear damage and therefore tinnitus.
Covid vaccines do sometimes lead to increased tinnitus symptoms. But you can’t draw any conclusions from that, because getting COVID often leads to increased tinnitus. I’m not sure whether it’s known yet, but it very well may be that on balance there are fewer cases of tinnitus associated with the vaccine than with the virus. Also, BTW, flu vaccines and catching the flu both have reports of tinnitus increase. My theory: any inflammation event may be likely to increase tinnitus symptoms.
What difference does it make if covid causes it? Most people took the vaccine, pretty much everybody got covid anyway. The vaccine was voluntary (with a lot of unethical coercion).
What do you mean what difference does it make? Isn’t it clear that you cannot attribute tinnitus to the covid vaccine, if the covid virus (or any virus, or any vaccine) causes tinnitus as much or more often than the vaccine does?
If the per-capita rate of onset tinnitus symptoms when getting the vaccine is lower than the rate of onset tinnitus when catching covid, then the vaccine isn’t just not implicated, it’s effectively helpful at reducing tinnitus, as a byproduct of reducing cases and/or severity of covid illness.
Pretty much everyone got covid anyway. The vaccine was an unnecessary intervention that didn't do anything to stop covid and caused harm to many people. Just admit you were conned into taking it.
Haven't you noticed, after smearing, slandering and discriminating against those who chose not to take it, there is very little interest in following up with comparisons between the two groups? You would have expected scientists to be really interested in comparing the groups considering it was done under Trump's operation warp speed, and used a novel technology never before approved for human use. Instead the vaccine free are ignored. Tells me all I need to know.
I got vaccinated three times (with Pfizer). No ill effects on my hearing/tinnitus (I was monitoring it). Then I got COVID (Omicron), was quite sick for several days (lost smell) and it seems the tinnitus worsened a bit in one ear. So... your mileage may vary, as with everything.