People infected with COVID-19 were roughly 47 times more likely to have a heart attack within four weeks of being exposed to the virus than uninfected people within four weeks of vaccination, according to a new study underlining the continuing risk of the virus.
The pre-print study of COVID patients in Hong Kong has not been peer-reviewed yet or accepted for publication. It was a joint effort of scientists at the University of Hong Kong and Oxford in the UK.
The authors were investigating reports of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), more commonly called a heart attack, after both infection and vaccination, to see if either was linked to an increased risk.
By looking at thousands of individuals from medical records, they determined that people with COVID-19 had heart attacks within four weeks of exposure at a rate of 2,185 per million. Among the vaccinated, the rate of heart attacks within 28 days of vaccination was 47 per million -- a 46.5x difference.
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"To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first study to demonstrate a lower rate of AMI in individuals vaccinated
against COVID-19 in comparison to those who were infected with COVID-19," the authors wrote.
