When COVID vaccines first became available in 2021, they were met with celebration. Finally we had some defence against this virus that had struck down so many and triggered such heavy lockdowns.

But once they started rolling out en masse, a new concern emerged – reports of side effects that, while rare, could be severe. 

Just how rare these conditions are has now been better described by a new paper drawing on data from 99 million people from across the world. 

The answer – as we already suspected, there is a link between the vaccines here in Australia and conditions like heart inflammation, blood clots and a usually temporary paralysis called Guillian-Barre syndrome, among others.

But the data also show the risk of those conditions is small in comparison to the risk of the same conditions in someone who actually catches COVID. 

References:

• COVID-19 vaccines and adverse events of special interest: A multinational Global Vaccine Data Network (GVDN) cohort study of 99 million vaccinated individuals