Category: Covid-19 Vaccine

The Army's universal vaccine has shown good results in mice, hamsters and primates.

Omicron, the latest variant of COVID-19, has led to a surge in cases and hospitalizations, raising talk offourth booster shots and variant-specific vaccines. But what if there were a universal coronavirus vaccine that protected against omicron and all new COVID-19 variants?

At Wednesday's press briefing, White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci explained the term "pan-coronavirus vaccine."

Said Fauci: "There have been five SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: alpha, beta, gamma, delta and now the current omicron. And so obviously, innovative approaches are needed to induce broad and durable protection against coronaviruses that are known and some that are even at this point unknown. Hence, the terminology 'pan-coronavirus vaccine.'"

In a surprise twist, it's not Moderna, Pfizer or any pharmaceutical company that is leading the research into pan-coronavirus vaccines -- it's the US Army.

The Army recently announced that its pan-coronavirus vaccine, the spike ferritin nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine (aka SpFN) had completed Phase 1 of human trials. Publication of the results is expected in January, depending on the completion of the official data analysis.

Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of infectious diseases at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) and co-inventor of SpFN, toldDefense One, "We're testing our vaccine against all the different variants, including omicron," the straincausing breakthrough infectionseven in people who have received booster shots.

We'll share what we know about pan-coronavirus vaccines and the Army's COVID-19 vaccine, including how it works and when it could become available.

For more, learn about free at-home COVID tests, why you shouldn't "just get COVID over with," mixing and matching booster shots, and the difference between N95, KN95, and KF94 masks.

Fauci has touted the importance of a universal vaccine to protect against all COVID variants. At a White House press briefing Wednesday, he stressed the "urgent need" for a universal coronavirus vaccine.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases committed big to that goal in fall 2021, awarding $36.3 million to three academic organizations -- Duke University, University of Wisconsin, and Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital -- to develop and research pan-coronavirus vaccines. CalTech also has announced good early results for its universal "mosaic nanoparticle" vaccine.

In a Jan. 11 advisory statement on the omicron variant, the World Health Organization declared that, "a vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable" and stressed the urgent need for a vaccine that offers long-lasting protection without boosters.

The three COVID-19 vaccines authorized right now for use in the US take two approaches to preventing infection: The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA to build up immunity, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses a harmless rhinovirus to train the body's immune system to respond to COVID.

The Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, takes a third approach, using a harmless portion of the COVID-19 virus to spur the body's defenses against COVID.

SpFN also has less restrictive storage and handling requirements than the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, allowing it to be used in a wider variety of situations. It can be stored between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit for up to six months and at room temperature for up to one month, according to military scientists. Pfizer's vaccine requires an ultracold freezer (between minus 112 and minus 76 degrees F) for shipment and storage and is onlystable for 31 days when stored in a refrigerator.

The Army's vaccine has been tested with two shots, 28 days apart, and also with a third shot after six months.

The vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson all target the specific virus -- SARS-CoV-2 -- that causes COVID-19. But Army scientists designed their vaccine to protect against future strains of COVID as well as other coronaviruses.

The Army's SpFN vaccine is shaped like a soccer ball with 24 faces. Scientists can attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains to each of the different faces, allowing them to customize the vaccine for any new COVID variants that arise.

"The accelerating emergence of human coronaviruses throughout the past two decades and the rise of SARS-CoV-2 variants, including most recently omicron, underscore the continued need for next-generation preemptive vaccines that confer broad protection against coronavirus diseases," Modjarrad said in a December statement. "Our strategy has been to develop a 'pan-coronavirus' vaccine technology that could potentially offer safe, effective and durable protection against multiple coronavirus strains and species."

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No date has been set. SpFN successfully completed animal testing and wrapped Phase 1 of human trials in December, but it must still complete Phases 2 and 3 of human testing, when its safety and efficacy is compared to current vaccine options.

Normally, completing all three phases can take up to five years, but the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic is speeding up the process. The Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, for example, were tested, reviewed and authorized by the Food and Drug Administration over the course of one year.

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According to a WRAIR spokesperson, "researchers have devoted their full attention to analyzing the Phase 1 data and writing a report of the results." The report could come in the next few weeks or even months.

After data from the Phase 1 human trials is published, Phase 2 and 3 trials will begin. There is very little information so far on when or how those trials will proceed or if the phases will overlap.

To follow the progress of the Army vaccine trials, visit the SpFN COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker provided by the US Army Medical Research and Development Command.

For more on COVID-19, here's what we know about how the CDC defines being fully vaccinated, how to store your vaccine card on your phone, and what we still don't know about the virus after two years.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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A universal vaccine to end COVID pandemics? It's in the Army's sights - CNET

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said this week that third shots of coronavirus vaccines significantly reduced the risk that people who are immunocompromised would be hospitalized due to COVID-19.

In a Thursday study in the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the agency said that compared to hospitalized adults who had received two mRNA vaccine doses the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and mRNA vaccines against hospitalization for patients with weak immune systems increased to 88%.

CASES OF 'STEALTH' OMICRON SUBVARIANT CONFIRMED IN NORTHEAST STATES: REPORTS

For immunocompromised people who had only had two doses, or a "primary series," the vaccines were 69% effective.

The data was gathered looking at nearly 3,000 1,385 case-patients and 1,567 non-COVID-19 controls at adults admitted to 21 hospitals across 18 states from Aug. 19 through Dec. 15 of last year.

The agency noted the analysis start date was one week after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized an additional dose for emergency use for people aged 12 and older with immunocompromising conditions 28 days following their second dose.

Vaccine effectiveness was calculated for both groups by comparing the odds of previous vaccination between COVID-19 case-patients and control patients who did not have the disease. The regression model was adjusted for admission date, region of hospital, age group, sex and self-reported race and ethnicity. Separate models were generated for immunocompetent adults and adults with immunocompromising conditions and analyses were conducted using Stata software.

Those who had COVID-19-like illness received positive test results by a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) or antigen test and control patients received negative NAAT tests.

Patients or their proxies were interviewed regarding demographic and clinical characteristics and medical record searches were conducted. Information regarding receipt of prior vaccine doses was obtained through self-report and review of source documentation.

Three vaccination groups were considered including unvaccinated patients, two-dose mRNA recipients and three-dose mRNA recipients.

Three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines were roughly 97% effective in preventing hospitalizations in those with stronger immune systems, compared with 82% of those with two doses.

PSAKI: 'FULLY VACCINATED' DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE 'UP-TO-DATE' ON VACCINATIONS

Notably, the study was conducted when the delta variant was predominant in the U.S., whereas omicron now makes up nearly 100% of new cases nationally.

Limitations to these findings include that vaccine recipients in both dose groups were similar in terms of most demographic and clinical characteristicsbut may have varied with respect to exposure risk for infection, that vaccine effectiveness was not assessed against mild illness or infection, that vaccine effectiveness with a fourth mRNA vaccine dose in immunocompromised individualswas not assessed and that most three-dose mRNA vaccine recipients were vaccinated within several weeks of enrollment and durability of protection will require future analysis.

"Early evidence suggests that a third mRNA vaccine dose elicits markedly stronger neutralizing antibody responses to the omicron variant compared with responses to two vaccine doses, and increases [vaccine effectiveness] against severe disease following infection with the omicron variant," the CDC wrote. "The effectiveness of three doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines against a range of disease severity associated with the omicron variant needs to be carefully evaluated in different populations."

In January, regulators said adults could receive boosters at least five months after their second dose.

As omicron spread, the White House has called on Americans to get their booster and the CDC said that administration of a third COVID-19 mRNA vaccine dose as part of a primary series among immunocompromised adults, or as a booster dose among immunocompetent adults, provides improved protection against COVID-19 hospitalization.

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Among adults with and without immunocompromising conditions who were eligible to receive a third dose of an mRNA vaccine, third doses were found to increase protection beyond that of a two-dose vaccination series for the prevention of COVID-19 hospitalization.

According to the American Medical Association, there are about seven million people with weakened immune systems in the country.

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CDC: Third COVID-19 vaccine shots reduce risk of hospitalization for immunocompromised - Fox News

COVID-19 vaccine inequity, dependency, and production capability in low-income and middle-income countries: the case of Bangladesh  The Lancet

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COVID-19 vaccine inequity, dependency, and production capability in low-income and middle-income countries: the case of Bangladesh - The Lancet

Prosecutors accused two women of forging a vaccine card for an undercover detective, even though the vaccine had not been administered.Credit...Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock

Two nurses on Long Island are accused of collecting more than $1.5 million by selling forged Covid-19 vaccination cards, according to the Suffolk County district attorneys office.

The nurses, Julie DeVuono, who owns Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare in Amityville, and Marissa Urraro, her employee, sold fake vaccination cards and entered false information into New Yorks immunization database, prosecutors said. They charged $220 for forged cards for adults and $85 for children, according to the district attorneys office.

Ms. DeVuono, 49, and Ms. Urraro, 44, were arraigned on Friday, each charged with one count of second-degree forgery. Ms. DeVuono was also charged with one count of offering a false instrument for filing.

Michael Alber, Ms. Urraros lawyer, said she had entered a plea of not guilty and had been released without bail.

We look forward to highlighting the legal impediments and defects in this investigation, Mr. Alber said. An accusation should not overshadow the good work Ms. Urraro has done for children and adults in the medical field.

Ms. DeVuonos lawyer could not be reached for comment.

During their arraignment on Friday, prosecutors accused the women of forging a vaccine card for an undercover detective, even though the vaccine had not been administered.

Prosecutors said law enforcement officers searched Ms. DeVuonos home and seized about $900,000 in cash and a ledger which suggested they made $1.5 million in the scheme from November to January.

I hope this sends a message to others who are considering gaming the system that they will get caught and that we will enforce the law to the fullest extent, the Suffolk County district attorney, Raymond A. Tierney, said in a statement.

Rodney K. Harrison, the Suffolk County police commissioner, said in a statement, As nurses, these two individuals should understand the importance of legitimate vaccination cards as we all work together to protect public health.

Nurses in South Carolina and Michigan have also faced charges for vaccine card forgery in recent months.

In December, a nurse in Columbia, S.C., was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of making fraudulent Covid-19 vaccination cards, according to the U.S. attorneys office for the District of South Carolina. In September, a nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Michigan was charged with stealing authentic vaccination cards from the hospital and reselling them, according to the U.S. attorneys office for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Yvonne Gamble, a spokeswoman for the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said schemes involving forged vaccination cards, like the one on Long Island, damaged efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

The proliferation of fake Covid-19 vaccination cards can jeopardize efforts to address the ongoing public health emergency, Ms. Gamble said. Therefore, we encourage the public to obtain valid proof of Covid-19 vaccination from their administering medical providers instead of creating fake vaccination cards or purchasing them from unauthorized sources.

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Latest on Covid Cases, Vaccines and the Omicron Variant: Live Updates - The New York Times

The Marine Corps has approved a third religious exemption to the required COVID-19 vaccine, according to its latest statement about the forces vaccination rate.

Historically religious exemptions to vaccines were completely nonexistent, with the Corps having no history of granting one over the past ten years, Marine spokesman Capt. Andrew Wood told Marine Corps Times in October 2021.

But in mid-January, the Corps said it granted two religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine the first for the U.S. military. Now, it has approved a third.

A total of 3,428 Marines have requested religious exemptions and 3,377 have been processed through Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs, leaving 51 to still be decided.

The Marine Corps, following Department of Defense policy, issued an order that all Marines were required to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 by the end of November 2021 or they would be separated.

The only way to avoid both the vaccine and separation was to get an approved medical, administrative or religious exception.

With the politicization of the current vaccine rollout, thousands of Marines have applied for religious exemptions, hoping to keep their careers and avoid the shot.

All current exemption requests are being reviewed on a case-by-case basis, Wood said in the emailed statement. Each request will be given full consideration with respect to the facts and circumstances submitted in the request.

The Marine Corps is tracking 627 administrative or medical exemptions to the vaccine, most of which are temporary, Wood said.

With the third Marine receiving the exemption, the Marine Corps is approving just 0.088% of all religious exemption requests.

The Marine Corps has a compelling governmental interest in mission accomplishment at the individual, unit, and organizational levels, Wood said. Adjudication Authorities pay particular attention to how religious accommodation request determinations will impact the Marines and units ability to accomplish the mission and consider the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest.

Currently 95% of the active duty Marine Corps is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while 97% of active duty Marines are fully or partially vaccinated.

For the reserves, 87% of the force is fully vaccinated while 88% of the force is fully or partially vaccinated.

Holding true to its promise to separate Marines who refuse the vaccine, the Corps already has administratively separated 399 Marines, Wood said.

No other U.S. military branch has yet approved any religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine.

In the active duty Army, 2,910 permanent religious exemptions have been requested, with 266 disapproved so far and zero approved, according to data released Wednesday.

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Another Marine receives a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine - Marine Corps Times

Pregnancy & COVID-19 Vaccines

As you care for the health of you and your baby, you will make many important decisions. Getting a COVID-19 vaccine is the best way to protect both of you against the virus.

The CDC and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommend you get vaccinated if you:

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine says getting vaccinated before becoming pregnant or early in your pregnancy is the best way to reduce risk of complications from COVID-19 for you and your baby.

When you are pregnant, your body changes in many ways. Your risk of getting severe COVID increases due to these changes, including:

The COVID-19 vaccine protects you from serious illness and keeps you healthy, so you can keep your baby healthy. Pregnant people who get COVID during their pregnancy are at higher risk for:

The CDC recommends the COVID vaccine for people who are breastfeeding. Reports have shown that breastfeeding people who have been vaccinated have antibodies in their breastmilk, which could help protect their babies.

The vaccine is safe for those who are pregnant, want to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. The vaccine does not contain any live virus, so it cannot give you or your baby COVID-19. The vaccine teaches your body to recognize COVID-19 and create an immune response.

There is no evidence that any vaccine causes fertility problems in women or men including the COVID-19 vaccines.

In addition to getting vaccinated, you can create a COVID-safe cocoon by encouraging those that come into contact with your baby to also get vaccinated.

If you have questions about COVID-19 vaccines or boosters, talk to your doctor or healthcare provider. You can also check out the CDCs Frequently Asked Questions about COVID-19 Vaccinationsor call the PA Health Hotline at 1-877-724-3258.

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Pregnancy & COVID-19 Vaccines - Governor Tom Wolf

With its new COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer and BioNTech are hoping to get ahead of worsening effects of omicron as well as any new variants. Jonas Roosens/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

With its new COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer and BioNTech are hoping to get ahead of worsening effects of omicron as well as any new variants.

Pfizer and BioNTech have begun a clinical trial to evaluate a new, omicron-specific vaccine for COVID-19, the pharmaceutical companies announced Tuesday.

Though people who are vaccinated and boosted appear to be better protected against severe disease and hospitalization from omicron, the highly contagious variant has still led to breakthrough cases and a surge in overall infections across the world.

"While current research and real-world data show that boosters continue to provide a high level of protection against severe disease and hospitalization with Omicron, we recognize the need to be prepared in the event this protection wanes over time and to potentially help address Omicron and new variants in the future," Kathrin U. Jansen, Pfizer's senior vice president and head of vaccine research and development, said in a statement.

The study will include as many as 1,420 participants divided into three groups.

One group includes people who have already received two doses of the current Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and will also receive the omicron vaccine. Another includes those with three doses of the current Pfizer vaccine who will also get the omicron vaccine. The third group includes unvaccinated people who will receive three shots of the omicron vaccine.

The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the current Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in people ages 5 and older. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are authorized for adults.

A version of this story originally appeared in the Morning Edition live blog.

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Testing of omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine by Pfizer and BioNTech begins - NPR

Covid-19 vaccines helped alter the trajectory of the pandemic significantly over the past year, preventing catastrophic numbers of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, according to a new model by the Commonwealth Fund.

Your top resources on the Covid-19 vaccines

Over the course of the pandemic, more than 5 million people in the worldand almost 900,000 people in the United States alonehave died from Covid-19. But while much attention has been focused on the pandemic's persistence, particularly as new, more transmissible coronavirus variants emerge, there have also been positive developmentsnamely, the Covid-19 vaccines.

According to Vox, the current Covid-19 vaccines were developed faster than any new vaccine in history, and models from several organizations and researchers show that the vaccines played a significant role in reducing cases, hospitalizations, and deaths over the course of the last year.

According to a study published in JAMA Network Open, Covid-19 vaccines helped avert 14 million cases, 1.1 million hospitalizations, and more than 240,000 deaths between Dec. 12, 2020, and June 30, 2021before the delta variant surge. "[The impact] was larger than we would've expected," said Meagan Fitzpatrick, an infectious disease modeler at the University of Maryland and one of the study's authors.

Similarly, a model created by Sumedha Gupta, a health policy economist at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, found that by May 9, 2021or less than six months after vaccines became available140,000 Covid-19 deaths were prevented. In particular, Gupta found that the most vulnerable populations, including the elderly, the immunocompromised, and those with preexisting conditions, benefited the most from vaccinations at this time, although they also protected unvaccinated individuals by slowing down viral transmission.

The timing of the United States' mass-vaccination campaign was also fortuitous, experts told Vox, kicking in just as the country was facing a new surge in cases. "Not only did our vaccination program really suppress the ongoing surge ... but it also helped avoid a later spring wave that would have happened with variant emergence," Fitzpatrick said. "I think the main takeaway is really focusing on speed and not just coverage. The emphasis that we had on getting the vaccines out fast ... was the right impulse."

In addition, a recent study from the Commonwealth Fund suggests that the Covid-19 vaccines' impact has only grown over time. For the study, researchers created a model to analyze the effects of the U.S. vaccination program between Dec. 12, 2020, and Nov. 30, 2021. Overall, they estimated that Covid-19 vaccines helped prevent over 35 million cases, 10.3 million hospitalizations, and approximately 1.1 million deaths during that time period. Without vaccines, the number of Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths in 2021 would have been approximately 4.9 and 3.2 times higher, respectively.

According to the researchers, the majority of these averted hospitalizations and deaths would have occurred during the late summer and early autumn of 2021 when the delta variant was surging in southern states and beginning to spread nationwide. The daily peak in deaths would have also reached 21,000 per day, much higher than the country's previous peak of 4,000 a day in January 2021.

Currently, around a quarter of the U.S. population, or more than 80 million people, are still unvaccinated, Vox reports, leaving them at higher risk of severe Covid-19 outcomes. According to CDC, unvaccinated individuals are 15 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than those who are vaccinated.

"We're really leaving [the] benefits [of vaccination] on the table," Gupta said.

However, according to experts, despite the promise of vaccinations, vaccinations alone will not be enough to end the pandemic. Vaccine immunity wanes over time, and the coronavirus may be evolving in ways that let it evade immunity more easily, such as with the omicron variant.

According to Vox, the United States has typically overlooked other, non-pharmaceutical interventions in favor of encouraging vaccination, much to its detriment now. For example, the federal government only just recently began distributing free rapid Covid-19 tests and medical-grade face masks for all Americans. Public gatherings have also largely resumed across the country, and many mask mandates have been lifted, even in areas of high viral transmission.

"It really was a problem of too much hubris, that (many believed) vaccines would be the only thing we needed," Fitzpatrick said. "It's not 'either/or,' it's 'both-and.'" (Irfan, Vox, 1/27; Schneider et al., Commonwealth Fund, 12/14/21)

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How many lives have Covid-19 vaccines saved? - The Daily Briefing

If youve been paying attention to social media recently, you may have noticed the development of a new and pretty heated topic: vaccine-induced myocarditis.

And, like a lot of news from the past couple of years, its because of COVID-19 misinformation.

Lets take a look at whats really going on what myocarditis is, whether theres a link to vaccines, and most importantly, whether we should be worried.

What is myocarditis?

Myocarditis is an inflammation (thats the -itis) of the heart muscle (the myocardium). Its actually part of the bodys innate immune response in Europe and North America, it most often occurs as a reaction to a viral infection like the flu or hepatitis.

It can be caused by other things too though, and many cases worldwide are a result of infection with Chagas disease which is parasitic. Then there are bacterial infections, toxins, autoimmune disorders, and even certain medications.

Is myocarditis dangerous?

Well, its certainly not good it can cause all kinds of nasty symptoms like shortness of breath, stabbing pains and tightness in the chest, difficulty breathing when resting, and flu-like symptoms such as tiredness and fever. In extremely rare cases, it can even cause sudden death.

In some cases, it can interfere with your hearts electrical system, making your heart beat in an irregular rhythm and if left untreated, it can seriously impact the strength of your heart muscle. Thats why if you experience any symptoms of myocarditis, you should seek medical attention immediately.

The good news is, more than four cases out of five go away without treatment and many of those who do need medical care will only need a course of anti-inflammatory drugs or antibiotics.

Sometimes more intensive solutions are needed, up to and including extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) or even a heart transplant.

Why is it in the news?

Vaccine-induced myocarditis has been a hot-button topic since well, pretty much since the vaccine rollout began. It didnt take long for case studies to surface conclusively linkingmRNA vaccines Moderna and Pfizer with a slightly increased risk of myocarditis, especially in adolescent males.

But while health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and theWorld Health Organization (WHO) swiftly issued statements explaining the overall health benefit of vaccination and relatively low incidence of myocarditis, various misinformation merchants jumped at the memeing potential of the findings.

Now, experts are having to tackle mainstream tabloids and hugely influential broadcasters who are convincing their audiences that getting a COVID-19 vaccinewill cause myocarditis.

Does the vaccine cause myocarditis?

Its certainly true that cases of myocarditis following vaccination, particularly with an mRNA vaccine, have been reported in countries around the world. Thats likely due to the way the vaccines work remember, vaccines dont fight disease themselves, they teach your body how to fight it. They do that, in most cases, by pretending to be that disease.

COVID itself presents to your body a protein its never seen before, which is the spike protein, explained Dr Raj Puranik, clinical practice advisor with the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand.

When people say [myocarditis is] vaccine-related, what happening is that the mRNA vaccine [] turns on your own bodys machinery to produce this protein that is foreign to your body, and then your body responds to it.

Estimates on the actual increase in risk range from around three toover23 times higher, depending on which research methods are used. One thing is important: the overall risk remains very low.

Thirty times a small number is still a small number, cardiologist Dr James de Lemos told the New York Times. The math still favors vaccination in adolescents and children.

So should we worry about myocarditis from the COVID vaccine?

Those numbers may seem scary, but there are some important caveats to bear in mind. First of all, those figures are a comparison with a healthy population but of course, were not taking vaccines because were healthy, were taking them to stop us from getting unhealthy.

If you look at an isolated risk, you could really get yourself very worked up and scared, Dr. Brian Feingold, an expert on heart inflammation in children at UPMC Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh, told the NYT.

However, he added, permanent heart damage is way more likely from a COVID-19 infection.

The better comparison, then, is to compare the incidence rates of myocarditis following vaccination to the rates following a COVID-19 infection and thats where the picture starts to look clearer.

Remember, myocarditis is most often caused by a virus, andSARS-CoV-2 is no exception: virtually every study that has been carried out on the subject agrees that catching COVID is much more likely to cause inflammation than getting vaccinated.

Dr Grace Lee, Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and Associate Chief Medical Officer for Practice Innovation at Stanford, agrees. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, she pointed out that [in] the population-based cohort in the study conducted by Barda and colleagues, the risk ratios for myocarditis were 3.24 [] after vaccination and 18.28 [] after SARS-CoV-2 infection.

That makes myocarditis after COVID-19 nearly six times more likely than after vaccination or, to put it another way, if youre scared of myocarditis, you should be more worried about COVID-19 than the vaccine against it.

Another thing to bear in mind is that, so far, vaccine-induced myocarditis mostly seems to be short-term and mild unsettling, but rarely life-threatening, de Lemos said to the NYT.

However,that isnt necessarily the case after a COVID-19 infection and if you want one takeaway about the link between vaccines and myocarditis, it should probably be this, explained by Dr Puranik:

"The really important issue here is that if you developed myocarditis after a vaccine were you to have seen this protein from COVID itself, it could have killed you.

All explainer articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.

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Explainer: What's The Deal With COVID-19 Vaccines And Myocarditis? - IFLScience

In 2018, Dictionary.com named misinformation a noun referring to false information that people and organizations spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead its word of the year.

The word certainly came in handy two years later. From the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation has run rampant. False and misleading information about everything from the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines to treatments for the disease has spread like wildfire on the internet, often with deadly consequences.

In April of 2020, for instance, Aljazeera reported that over 700 people died in Iran after ingesting toxic methanol because they believed it could cure COVID-19.

A new study aimed to see whether there was a link between depressive symptoms and receptiveness to misinformation about vaccines for COVID-19.

Researchers behind this study published in JAMA Network Open started by exploring whether individual characteristics more complex than simple demographic factors or party affiliation could be associated with greater susceptibility to misinformation.

The researchers pointed to a 2019 study that suggests that individuals with depressive symptoms often display a greater negativity bias, meaning they pay more attention to information that is largely negative.

Dr. Roy Perlis, lead author of the new study, associate chief of research at the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, and director of the hospitals Center for Quantitative Health, says that was their origin point for the study.

One of the notable things about depression is that it can cause people to see the world differently sort of the opposite of rose-colored glasses. That is, for some depressed people, the world appears as a particularly dark and dangerous place.

Dr. Roy Perlis

We wondered whether people seeing the world this way might also be more susceptible to believing misinformation about vaccines. If you already think the world is a dangerous place, you might be more inclined to believe that vaccines are dangerous even though they are not, he says.

For this study, researchers looked at data from a survey of over 15,000 adults from all 50 states between April and May 2021 and June and July 2021. They measured participants depressive symptoms using the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9).

The researchers presented participants with misinformed statements that were prevalent on social media platforms in the spring of 2021 and asked participants to label them as accurate, inaccurate, or not sure.

These false statements were:

After collecting their answers, researchers informed the participants that the statements were not true to ensure the survey did not spread misinformation.

They asked participants about their primary news sources, which included resources from Fox News to government infographics and materials. Researchers also asked sociodemographic questions, requesting that participants share their race, ethnicity, and gender and rate their ideology on a scale ranging from extremely liberal to extremely conservative.

The majority of the participants were female (63.6%) and white (76.7%).

The researchers took note of whether the survey participants had received a COVID-19 vaccine. Participants who had not received a vaccine marked whether they would get one as soon as possible, after some people I know, after most people I know, or stated, I would not get the COVID-19 vaccine.

As part of the study, the researchers also analyzed data received from a subset of nearly 3,000 respondents who answered an additional survey two months later.

Nearly 30% of respondents had moderate or greater depressive symptoms, according to the PHQ-9. About 20% of respondents endorsed at least one of four vaccine-related statements of misinformation.

Respondents who endorsed at least one misinformed statement were half as likely to have received a COVID-19 vaccination.

Respondents reporting depressive symptoms in the first survey were twice as likely as those who did not report depressive symptoms to endorse more misinformed statements in the second survey than they did in the first.

The researchers stress that the studys design does not allow them to address causation.

While we cant conclude that depression caused this susceptibility, looking at a second wave of data at least told us that the depression came before the misinformation. That is, it wasnt that misinformation was making people more depressed, Perlis says in a press release.

Dr. Kate Maddalena, an assistant professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology at the University of Toronto Mississauga in Ontario, told Medical News Today that the study serves as a reminder that society needs to do a better job of diagnosing and treating individuals with major depressive disorder.

That said, she cautioned that even if someone were to develop an intervention that could tackle the Herculean task of reducing depression in the population, the complicated problem of misinformation would likely still plague society.

She said that numerous other factors such as an individuals socioeconomic status and political affinity also play a role in how vulnerable one is to believing false information.

Dr. Maddalena called reducing depression a positive drop in [a] big bucket of factors that contribute to susceptibility to misinformation.

Dr. Robert Trestman, senior vice president and chair of psychiatry at the Carilion Clinic in Virginia, agreed that a battle against misinformation has numerous fronts.

Especially now, in our culture at this time, so much of the disinformation isnt a simple fact its a whole fabric, he told MNT.

[F]or many, it is almost religious in the intensity of the belief structure, and challenging these beliefs is in some ways almost like challenging someones religion. [U]ntil we can help align more of society to support the need for honesty and accuracy in what we report, acknowledging that we can be uncertain but that we do the best we can to share accurate information, [] its not going to change, he said.

According to Trestman, this belief structure and culture of disinformation are why 2,000 Americans died yesterday from COVID-related illnesses, and the vast majority of those individuals were unvaccinated.

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Depression linked to believing COVID-19 vaccine misinformation - Medical News Today