Posts falsely claim heart inflammation only occurs after COVID-19 vaccination

The widespread circulation of misleading claims about the study increases their risk. Messaging may explain that the study has not been peer-reviewed and has several limitations, including the exclusion of high-risk children and adolescents. Additionally, despite claims from vaccine opponents, the study did not compare heart inflammation rates after vaccination with those after infection and did not analyze data that would have allowed any conclusions about heart inflammation risk after COVID-19 infection. Messaging may also emphasize that the study concluded that the reduction in COVID-19 risk due to vaccination outweighed the increased risk of heart inflammation for adolescents but not for children. Previous research has shown heart inflammation after COVID-19 vaccination to be extremely rare, typically mild, and less common than after COVID-19 infection and that vaccines reduce the risk of severe illness,  long COVID, and death.

Fact-Checking Source(s): Yale Medicine, Penn Medicine