> This paper essentially argues that the risk of myocarditis in under-40 males getting 2 shots is greater (perhaps much greater) than the risk of getting it from COVID. There have been similar studies before, but none (that I saw) broken down by age and sex like this.
This is especially fascinating to me because for months I noticed that whenever I or anyone else would bring up the fear of myocarditis from the vax (which I ended up not experiencing, by the way, that I know of - and I got two shots of Moderna which I specifically chose because it has more antibodies) a slew of people would show up to admonish, bring up the typical "anti-vaxxer!" arguments, and state that the risk of getting it from COVID was far far greater. I recall every media article on the subject stating the same thing.
So where were these people and the media getting their information from, or were they just making it up?
And if the latter is the case, it's when people and the media do things like this that people either begin to distrust science more, or use it as another example of why science shouldn't be treated like religion and how the media and people picks and chooses which scientific information to share with the public to fit the narrative they're pushing. It's just sad all around.
They might still be right; this is only a pre-print, only focused on one specific aspect of COVID and the effect size is small.
But if they are wrong, the most likely explanation is they misunderstood something and were just wrong. Ironically, as is well known but bears repeating, the vocal "follow the science" types tend more to be believers in authority figures than people who care what science says. They aren't especially motivated by evidence.
Actual scientists will usually be circumspect until the evidence is overwhelming.
> the most likely explanation is they misunderstood something and were just wrong
I think you're giving the media far too much credit especially when it comes to this issue. Remember, this is a media that actively called a legitimate, low-side-effect profile, WHO-listed essential drug "horse paste" or at least actively made comparisons to it, and a media that sowed fear and doubt about the vaccine while Trump was still President.
I think the time is long gone for giving the media the benefit of the doubt on things like this. Scientists sure, but the media, absolutely not.
> They might still be right; this is only a pre-print, only focused on one specific aspect of COVID and the effect size is small.
There was a study of Canadian data (Ontario) recently as well which interestingly showed large differences depending on the combo (Pfizer/Pfizer, Pfizer/Moderna, Moderna/Moderna, Moderna/Pfizer) of 1st and 2nd shot: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.02.21267156v...
I think it’s generally true. Check out the discussion sections of the primary sources, they are usually pretty forthcoming about the limitations of the data and methodology.
This in general has been what has kept my uncertainty factor high on the question of omicron’s virulence, while you can find plenty of news headlines misrepresenting the research (on both sides of the issue).
(I’m a scientist, but my field is not bio- or medicine-adjacent)
This preprint agrees that the risk of myocarditis is significantly higher, except if you are
a. A male
b. Under 40 years old
c. Took the Moderna vaccine
So the statement that COVID has a higher risk of myocarditis is still true.
The media and those people got their information from existing data. This data was correct for the original question. However it wasn't delineated by age and by vaccine, and it's only after that you can make another argument.
So yes, the media was right, not the antivaxxers. There is no shenanigans. Unless you have a source that predates this paper saying that the Moderna vaccine has a higher risk of myocarditis specifically for men under 40 that happens to be antivaxx for completely unrelated reasons as myocarditis risk from the vaccine is much lesser than the overall risk from COVID for any demographic.
I don't know. I feel that many people got unfairly labelled as "anti-vaxxer" because they simply opposed to forced vaccination --not the efficacy of the vaccine itself, based on the argument that risk of death from covid was relatively very low for healthy adults and children. And given the time constrains for the vaccine production and trials, it would have been prudent to assume that the side effects associated with the vaccines would not be fully revealed in time.
I believe the right move would've been to let people decide, especially after became clear that vaccination did not protect against infection in the medium run with Israel data being abundantly clear already in late spring of this year. I still believe vaccination rates amongst the old would have been extremely high, protecting those who are at-risk the most. I saw this happening in countries like Brazil, old people rushed to take the jab despite no clear mandates in the beginning of the mass vaccination campaign --although a lot of people got the Sinovac which are not as effective as Pfizer or Moderna.
> This preprint agrees that the risk of myocarditis is significantly higher, except if you are
a. A male b. Under 40 years old c. Took the Moderna vaccine
A few things to consider, the paper's calculated myocarditis risk post covid is overestimated as it is impossible to know how many people actually caught the virus. It is reasonable to assume that the actual delta (risk myocarditis post vax vs risk myocarditis post covid) is actually larger, I believe this is just the tip of the icerberg.
Also, the bit about Males only. Pretty sure if you stratified the population even further, you'd find that young females are also at a significantly higher risk of myocarditis for vax vs post covid. As some mentioned here, it would be nice if the age intervals were a bit more stratified.
People were labelled anti-vaxxers because they were opposed to forced vaccination? I can't say that this is a sentiment that's new to me.
The Israel data clearly showed that the vaccine was protective against infection in the medium term. Just not as much as originally.
>A few things to consider, the paper's calculated myocarditis risk post covid is overestimated as it is impossible to know how many people actually caught the virus. It is reasonable to assume that the actual delta (risk myocarditis post vax vs risk myocarditis post covid) is actually larger, I believe this is just the tip of the icerberg.
We actually don't know that. We see from this data that you can have myocarditis without the usual symptoms of a strong immune reaction. For all we know, there could have been a hundred thousand cases of myocarditis from COVID that didn't come with associated COVID symptoms and resolved themselves, going without any diagnosis.
Actually, we generally don't even know the real rate of myocarditis in the general population. It's relatively common that someone is admitted to the hospital for another symptom and myocarditis is diagnosed, without the patient even noticing.
As for females, for any age, there is zero statistically significant result for myocarditis included to the vaccine, at all. So for all we know, the vaccine may cause zero myocarditis in females. It's almost certain that further stratification would help.
The reason why there was not anymore stratification is because myocarditis due to the vaccine is so rare that if you do stratify it, you cannot come to any conclusion.
It's possible that there is a misestimation of the background risk. However, given that most cases of myocarditis are mild, the vast majority of myocarditis cases without a positive COVID test almost certainly went undiagnosed, so this is a fair comparison. Cases that have been diagnosed can also be misatributed to background risk, if there are no other covid symptoms and thus no covid test is administered.
> Actually, we generally don't even know the real rate of myocarditis in the general population. It's relatively common that someone is admitted to the hospital for another symptom and myocarditis is diagnosed, without the patient even noticing.
Yes, but wouldn't we expect this to apply to both groups at the roughly same rate?
> As for females, for any age, there is zero statistically significant result for myocarditis included to the vaccine, at all. So for all we know, the vaccine may cause zero myocarditis in females. It's almost certain that further stratification would help.
This is not true according to the pre-print (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.23.21268276v...), page 10. In fact, it shows that Moderna's second dose is associated with higher incidence rate against baseline. Though if we compare with post-covid, there is an overlap in the 95% CI --though IRR for 2nd dose Moderna is higher.
> The reason why there was not anymore stratification is because myocarditis due to the vaccine is so rare that if you do stratify it, you cannot come to any conclusion.
Fair point. Yes, certainly further stratification would lead to a loss in statistical power and making the point estimates meaningless, but it would be nice to see it in case there is still some point estimates that show statistically significant results because I suspect that the risk of myocarditis goes up inversely with age.
> I don't know. I feel that many people got unfairly labelled as "anti-vaxxer" because they simply opposed to forced vaccination
Unlikely because the most of the same people chose not to get vaccinated themselves well before any mandates or requirements came into force, and were posting arguments online warning people not to get the vaccine or that it hadn't been sufficiently tested - as you yourself do in this post.
This indicates that they weren't just opposed to forced vaccination, but opposed to this vaccination in particular. It was quite rare to see someone post something along the lines of <<Everyone should get vaccinated, and you are in more danger from COVID-19 if you don't get vaccinated than from side effects if you do. However, I am opposed only to forcing the vaccine on you. Please get vaccinated yourself instead!>>
I have seen many people arguing for the vaccines as an effective treatment whilst defending people's choice to refuse the vaccine. Though I got vaccinated, I was surely forced to do so else I would've lost my job, but I delayed as much as I could. However, I was very clear to advise my parents (in their late 60s) to be the first in lie to take the vaccine because I knew the risks associated with COVID far outweighed any risk associated with the vaccine. And I know of many people with similar views, though they apply to a different age group, like many parents not wanting to vaccinate their children because they understand how rare of a event is death from covid for a healthy kid.
> and were posting arguments online warning people not to get the vaccine or that it hadn't been sufficiently tested - as you yourself do in this post.
As did many news media organizations - only up until the election, that is. [0] Then everyone was a conspiracy theorist immediately after.
Government of Ontario (Province in Canada) published data months ago showing that young men were at higher risk from heart issues. Nobody cared and the all the local and federal news outlets refused to report on the numbers.
Right, so the rate is 200 cases per million vaccinations.
The COVID rates are 450 cases per million vaccination.
So I did remember correctly, and it was indeed lower than infection, presumably because it wasn't delineated by vaccine, also IIRC Moderna is contra-indicated for young men in Ontario.
> So the statement that COVID has a higher risk of myocarditis is still true.
Yes but it's misleading, and whether or not you want to argue it's deliberately so, is another debate. Are men under 40 who are considering Moderna (or don't even know what vax they're going to get since both are considered fairly equal) not worthy of being informed that their risk of myocarditis is actually potentially higher than if they got COVID? That doesn't make much sense to me, if it does to you then at what threshold would they be worthy of being informed that the blanket statement that's been being thrown around, doesn't actually apply to them? I seem to recall most people arguing that "COVID isn't actually that bad" not having an acceptable argument because while it's true for many people, for other groups of people, COVID actually is bad...
Ontario was reporting age/sex-delineated data to this effect as early as the summer - all while the media and public health officials were advising Ontarians (including < 40 yr old males) to "take the first vaccine you're offered."
Did he qualify the statement or make it in general? If he didn't qualify it, he is simply incorrect.
Additionally, if he suggested that for any demographic the vaccine is more dangerous than COVID, even if he mentioned that it was only for one demographic and only for one vaccine, he was wrong and remains wrong.
Did you just accuse him of making conclusions without evidence while responding with absolute certainty?
This discussion is about discussing an actual study that can back up the calculatio of covid vs vax side effects. Afaik, prior to that there hasn't been such evidence so all the risk calculations were essentially pulled out of one's bottom.
Since you're accusing him of insufficient evidence for his mere hypotheticals, can you actually provide evidence for your absolute statements?
With Covid moving so fast it's not really feasible to rely on peer-reviewed data alone. Once a paper gets reviewed things have usually changed (like new variants). Pre-prints are very necessary because of this.
Of course it's not optimal, you either have unreliable or outdated data.
Just to point out you're making assumption of someone's competency, ability, and then go yourself to make vague and broad, unbacked claims; you do seem to be parroting common mainstream talking points to counter-narrative talking points - just observation of mine.
Likewise, there are actual answers regarding background levels of myocarditis, etc, and in fact it's far more complex than either of us are going to begin to discuss here.
And in regards to mortality rate, pretty much all research/numbers show that comorbidities/underlying health is the main factor - and which we could dive into the nuance, however your final claim immediately is obviously dismissable - but the easiest rebuttal is to parrot back to what seems to be a highly arrogant attitude: what makes you so sure your analysis (or sources) are so correct?
> Despite this you have immediately concluded that the media is lying to you and making it up as they go along.
This is not true, although reading my post back I can somewhat see why you would think that. I stated
> So where were these people and the media getting their information from, or were they just making it up?
The paragraph immediately following this was intended as an "and if they were making it up" continuation. I will edit my original post to clarify.
> Why are you so sure this analysis is correct?
One thing this study has going for it over the media and internet commenters just stating things like "scientists and doctors say that" is that here, we actually see some data, rather than the media or others basically saying the data exists, somewhere out there, source: "just trust us".
This is especially fascinating to me because for months I noticed that whenever I or anyone else would bring up the fear of myocarditis from the vax (which I ended up not experiencing, by the way, that I know of - and I got two shots of Moderna which I specifically chose because it has more antibodies) a slew of people would show up to admonish, bring up the typical "anti-vaxxer!" arguments, and state that the risk of getting it from COVID was far far greater. I recall every media article on the subject stating the same thing.
So where were these people and the media getting their information from, or were they just making it up?
And if the latter is the case, it's when people and the media do things like this that people either begin to distrust science more, or use it as another example of why science shouldn't be treated like religion and how the media and people picks and chooses which scientific information to share with the public to fit the narrative they're pushing. It's just sad all around.