PORTLAND, Ore. – An Oregon Health Authority study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that vaccination against the COVID-19 virus is not linked to death from cardiac events among previously healthy young people, state health officials said.
OHA officials said that the study that appeared on April 11 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report examined nearly 1,300 deaths among Oregon adolescents and young adults ages 16 to 30 that occurred over a 19-month period in 2021 and 2022. None of the deaths that happened within 100 days after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine dose was attributed to vaccination, state officials said. The OHA said that data does not support suggestions of a connection between rare cases of myocarditis associated with vaccination for COVID-19 and increased risk of cardiac death.
“According to information recorded on death certificates, among 1,292 deaths of persons 16 to 30 years of age from June 2021 to December 2022, none was found to have been caused by COVID-19 vaccination,” said Dr. Paul Cieslak, medical director for communicable diseases and immunizations and one of the study’s co-authors.
OHA officials said that only three of 40 deaths that occurred among vaccinated persons happened within 100 days after receiving the vaccine and two of these deaths were attributed to chronic underlying conditions with the third was deemed ‘undetermined.’ No death certificates attributed death to vaccination, state health officials said. The OHA said two limitations in their findings included the fact they could not exclude the possibility of vaccine-associated deaths beyond 100 days after being vaccinated but adverse events associated with vaccinations tent to happen with 42 days of vaccination. A second limitation of the study was that the research could not exclude a rarer event among those vaccinated even though nearly a million young people received a COVID-19 vaccination during the study, OHA officials said.
“Nevertheless, it is clear that the risk, if any, of cardiac death linked to COVID-19 vaccination is very low, while the risk of dying from COVID-19 is real,” Cieslak said. “We continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for all persons 6 months of age and older to prevent COVID-19 and complications, including death.”
