Updated seasonal COVID-19 vaccines continue to significantly lower the risk of post-viral cardiovascular complications. The 2024-2025 formulation reduced major adverse cardiac events by 38% in a cohort study of over one million US veterans.

Direct link to the peer-reviewed study: [M. Cai, Y. Xie, and Z. Al-Aly, COVID-19 Vaccine and Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events Among US Veterans, JAMA Internal Medicine (2026)](https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2026.1929)

>**Meaning**  Receipt of the 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine was associated with reduced COVID-19–associated cardiovascular risk; evidence of vaccine effectiveness against the broader outcome (all-cause MACE) likely reflects the hidden burden of undetected SARS-CoV-2 and associated complications that are amenable to reduction by COVID-19 vaccination.

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In the Pipeline Commentary from Derek Lowe: [Covid-19 Vaccinations and the Heart](https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/covid-19-vaccinations-and-heart)

>There’s [a good new paper](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2850241) in *JAMA Internal Medicine* looking at a large recent data set in Covid-19 vaccinations in an older population. It’s from the Veterans Administration, looking at about one million veterans who got a flu vaccine in 2024, and over three hundred thousand of them also got a coronavirus vaccine. Following up on these cohorts, the authors find that there was a 38% reduction in coronovirus-related major cardiovascular events in that latter vaccinated category, which is very nice to see. Even more interesting is that there was a 24% decrease in all-causes cardiovascular events (that is, including patients who were never diagnosed with a coronavirus infection during this period. That’s quite impressive – [comparable to the benefits](https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/have-the-benefits-of-statins-been-overstated) of statins in at-risk patients (and it should be noted at the same time that the effects of statin therapy in otherwise healthy older patients [do not seem](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6179900/) to be [particularly meaningful](https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3830), although debate continues on that question).