Study finds “no increase in incidence of myocarditis” after Covid infection in unvaccinated adults

AN Israeli cohort study involving 196,992 unvaccinated adults found “no increase in the incidence of myocarditis and pericarditis” after COVID infection.

The Israeli study, which was actually published in April but has gained traction on Friday, July 8, is called ‘The Incidence of Myocarditis and Pericarditis in Post COVID-19 Unvaccinated Patients—A Large Population-Based Study’.

The study explained that “myocarditis and pericarditis are potential post-acute cardiac sequelae of COVID-19 infection, arising from adaptive immune responses and the scientist’s aim was to “study the incidence of post-acute COVID-19 myocarditis and pericarditis.

To do that, they did a “retrospective cohort study of 196,992 adults after COVID-19 infection in Clalit Health Services members in Israel between March 2020 and January 2021.”

The study said: “Inpatient myocarditis and pericarditis diagnoses were retrieved from day 10 after positive PCR. Follow-up was censored on February 28, 2021, with a minimum observation of 18 days.”

It added: “The control cohort of 590,976 adults with at least one negative PCR and no positive PCR were age- and sex-matched.

“Since the Israeli vaccination program was initiated on December 20, 2020, the time-period matching of the control cohort was calculated backward from December 15, 2020.”

“Nine post-COVID-19 patients developed myocarditis (0.0046 per cent), and eleven patients were diagnosed with pericarditis (0.0056 per cent). In the control cohort, 27 patients had myocarditis (0.0046 per cent) and 52 had pericarditis (0.0088 per cent),” it said.

“Age (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 0.96, 95 per cent confidence interval [CI]; 0.93 to 1.00) and male sex (aHR 4.42; 95 per cent CI, 1.64 to 11.96) were associated with myocarditis.

“Male sex (aHR 1.93; 95 per cent CI 1.09 to 3.41) and peripheral vascular disease (aHR 4.20; 95 per cent CI 1.50 to 11.72) were associated with pericarditis.

“Post COVID-19 infection was not associated with either myocarditis (aHR 1.08; 95 per cent CI 0.45 to 2.56) or pericarditis (aHR 0.53; 95 per cent CI 0.25 to 1.13).”

The study concluded: “We did not observe an increased incidence of neither pericarditis nor myocarditis in adult patients recovering from COVID-19 infection.”

After it began circulating on social media late Thursday, July 7 and early on Friday, July 8 many users on Twitter were quick to comment.

One user wrote: “Observational data. Outpatient medical records were excluded from the study. Short observational period. It is very rare in other, well-designed studies as well. This study isn’t new…it was published in April. If you seek only what you want to hear, you’ll find it.”

“I know some people are questioning the quality of this study’s data, but it seemed like the increase in heart problems was mostly vaccine-driven, just from timing (why not 2020?), preponderance of findings, and the intensity with which vaccine zealots refuted the notion,” said another.

Another person said: “This means that the increase in myocarditis and pericarditis was caused by the vaccination.”

“MDPI doesn’t have the best reputation for the quality of their publications. I wouldn’t be so confident in these findings, especially without taking a deeper dive into the data/results,” another Twitter user said.

Earlier in the year, Isreal published the results regarding the effectiveness of a fourth Covid vaccine jab after becoming the first country to apply it to significant numbers of people.

The study published by the Israeli Ministry of Health said that a fourth dose of the Covid vaccine is “very effective” for over-60s, who are “three times more protected” from serious illness than people of the same age group who have had only three injections.

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