Sweden & Denmark Pause Moderna Vaccine For People Under 30 Due To Myocarditis & Pericarditis
Sweden & Denmark have both decided to pause the administration of the Moderna vaccine for people born in 1991 or after. The decision comes after an increase in myocarditis and pericarditis among youths and young adults that have been vaccinated.
Both of these conditions involve an inflammation of the heart or it's lining and, in somecase, can be lethal but in most cases people make a full recovery. They can also reduce your heart’s ability to pump blood. In some cases it can permanently damage your heart muscle.
Both Sweden & Denmark are still recommending other vaccines as safe for this age group, and has emphasized that the incidents of vaccine induced myocarditis & pericarditis is quite rare, but it's hard to know the exact rate at which this may be occuring.
It further begs the question, what are the chances of of a youngster being hospitalized from myocarditis compared to COVID? A recent study out of the University of California shows that the risk of myocarditis is greater as a result of the vaccine than the risk of being hospitalized for COVID for boys ages 12-15.
According to a recent study by Stanford academics, if a child is infected with COVID, they have a nearly 100 percent survival rate. If infected with COVID-19, children ages 0-9 have on average a chance of 0.1% or 1/1000 of being hospitalized and, for ages 11-19 a 0.2% or 1/500 chance of being admitted to the hospital (Herrera-Esposito, 2021).
In the USA, UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, France and South Korea, deaths from COVID-19 in children remained rare up to February 2021 (ie, up to the time the study had available data about), at 0.17 per 100 000 population.
There have been multiple reports of death from myocarditis following COVID vaccination, including a 13-year-old Michigan boy who died June 16, three days after he received his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. Preliminary autopsy results indicated that following his vaccination his heart become enlarged and was surrounded by fluid.
In Ontario, Canada, as of August 7th, there were 106 incidents of myocarditis/pericarditis in Ontario, Canada in people under the age of 25.
It’s important to do a proper risk/benefit calculation which appropriately compares this risk from the vaccine, in young people, to the risk of COVID. It is also appropriate to consider that there may be a number of cases that have gone unreported.
An article published by Wesley Pegden, an Associate Professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University explains,
On June 23, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the CDC met to discuss ongoing reports of myocarditis in young people, particularly young men, after the 2nd dose of mRNA vaccines. In light of these recent reports, the committee was charged with weighing potential harms and benefits associated with 2nd doses of mRNA vaccines. Despite the importance and gravity of the topic, and the high level at which this discussion was taking place, the presentation given to the committee for the purpose of weighing those harms and benefits was fundamentally flawed.
There is still a lot we don't know, especially given the fact that there is no long term data to assess the safety of these vaccines for children. This and a number of other reasons are why a large minority of parents do not want their children vaccinated.