Increased emergency cardiovascular events among under-40 population in Israel during vaccine rollout and third COVID-19 wave

“Discussion: This study leverages a unique dataset of all EMS CA [cardiac arrest] and ACS [acute coronary syndrome] calls in Israel over two and half years that span 14 months prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 10 months that include two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 6 months with a third wave of the pandemic parallel to the vaccination rollout among the 16-year-old and over population. Thus, it provides a unique perspective to explore the association between trends in CA and ACS call volume over the study period and different factors, such as COVID-19 infection rates and vaccination rates…

The main finding of this study concerns with increases of over 25% in both the number of CA calls and ACS calls of people in the 16–39 age group during the COVID-19 vaccination rollout in Israel (January–May, 2021), compared with the same period of time in prior years (2019 and 2020), as shown in Table 1. Moreover, there is a robust and statistically significant association between the weekly CA and ACS call counts, and the rates of 1st and 2nd vaccine doses administered to this age group. At the same time there is no observed statistically significant association between COVID-19 infection rates and the CA and ACS call counts. This result is aligned with previous findings which show increases in overall CA incidence were not always associated with higher COVID-19 infections rates at a population level, as well as the stability of hospitalization rates related to myocardial infarction throughout the initial COVID-19 wave compared to pre-pandemic baselines in Israel. These results also are mirrored by a report of increased emergency department visits with cardiovascular complaints during the vaccination rollout in Germany as well as increased EMS calls for cardiac incidents in Scotland.”