Health misinformation remains one of Covid’s most damaging legacies, with online falsehoods fuelling vaccine hesitancy, sowing mistrust and eroding public health efforts worldwide.
Shifting policies and political rhetoric in the US have deepened the confusion, with some experts warning that scepticism is partly to blame for the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases like whooping cough.
Now, a study involving millions of children in England – covering 85% of the entire youth population – has compared for the first time the cardiac risks of Covid infection with those linked to vaccination
Cambridge University teamed up with colleagues from University College London, the University of Edinburgh and the British Heart Foundation to carry out the work.
They were given access to anonymised health records of almost 14 million under 18s. …
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The team discovered there were 2.24 extra cases of pericarditis or myocarditis per 100,000 children with Covid infections, and found that risks lingered for a year. In vaccinated youths, there were only 0.85 extra cases, while risks dissipated after a month.
