Heart protection from COVID shots remains amid updates, study finds
Ars Technica • • general
Key Points:
- A new study of over 1 million US veterans shows that the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine provides significant protection against major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), especially in people aged 75 and older and those with underlying health conditions.
- The vaccine reduced COVID-19-associated MACE events by 38%, lowering the rate from about 5 in 10,000 to 3 in 10,000, with additional benefits seen in reducing deaths and cardiovascular events even without documented COVID-19 cases.
- Despite these findings, only 17.5% of US adults and 22.6% of those over 65 have received the 2025–2026 COVID shot, reflecting widespread vaccine hesitancy influenced by politicization and anti-vaccine messaging.
- Experts emphasize the continued cardiovascular and COVID-19 protection benefits of updated boosters and call for increased public engagement and data dissemination to counter misinformation and improve vaccine uptake.
- The study’s limitations include its focus on an older, predominantly White, male veteran population, which may affect the generalizability of the results to the broader US population.
