COVID vaccination lowers cardiovascular and stroke risk – GWC Mag

Complete vaccination against COVID-19 was linked to a reduced risk of cardiovascular events such as acute myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke as secondary complications of a COVID-19 infection. These results were published in a peer-reviewed journal recently.

This is another huge benefit of COVID-19 vaccination that should be convincing evidence that the vaccine has both short- and long-term benefits.

As I usually do, I will review the study and results so that you can use this paper as further evidence that COVID-19 vaccination saves lives.

COVID-19 vaccination and reduced cardiovascular risks paper

In a research letter published on 22 July 2022 in JAMA, Jaehun Jung, MD, Ph.D., of Gachon University College of Medicine, Incheon, Korea, and colleagues examined cardiovascular events in the 31 to 120 days after COVID-19 diagnosis for the fully vaccinated compared with those not vaccinated. Jung and colleagues compared COVID-19 patients who were never vaccinated (n=62,727) to those who were fully vaccinated (n=168,310). They used nationwide data Korean nationwide COVID-19 registry and the Korean National Health Insurance Service database. COVID-19-19 reporting is mandated and universal health care coverage is in place in Korea.

The key results were:

• Composite of hospitalizations for acute myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke — adjusted hazard ratio (HR) = 0.42, or a 58% reduction in risk for COVID-19 vaccinated versus unvaccinated.
• Acute myocardial infarction — adjusted HR = 0.48, or a 52% reduction in risk.
• Ischemic stroke — adjusted HR = 0.40, or a 60% reduction in risk

The reduction in post-COVID myocardial infarctions and strokes among the fully vaccinated was observed across various subgroups. However, it did not reach statistical significance for people with a previous history of outcome events or those with severe or critical COVID-19.

These results are not different than another study that I previously discussed. Using data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs before widespread vaccine availability, the researchers had estimated strokes from 30 days after infection as occurring at a rate of 4.03 per 1,000 people at 12 months; post-COVID myocardial infarctions were reported at 2.91 per 1,000 people at 12 months.

In the Korean data, the stroke rate in unvaccinated individuals was 4.59 per million person-days and the myocardial infarction rate was 1.60 per million person-days in the 31 to 120 days after COVID-19 diagnosis.

Summary

Once again, there is robust and repeated evidence that the risk of long-term consequences of COVID-19 is reduced by COVID-19 vaccination. These vaccines are safe and effective, and they prevent cardiovascular events from COVID-19 such as heart attack and stroke. If this doesn’t convince you to get the vaccine, I’m running out of ideas.

Get the vaccine, it saves your life.

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