Cases of heart inflammation in people who received a COVID-19 vaccine have been recorded in states across the country, U.S. health officials say.
Rhode Island, Utah, and Wyoming have each seen one case while Illinois and Arizona have seen two each, health officials told The Epoch Times in emails. Idaho has recorded three, and Texas officials are aware of 10 cases.
Connecticut previously reported 18 instances of post-vaccination myocarditis. There have also been cases in Oregon and Washington state.
The total number of cases is at least 57.
The number was reached from answers The Epoch Times received after contacting the health departments of every state and a review of publicly available information.
It includes Washington state, where officials told reporters in a briefing on Thursday that they’ve received more than a dozen reports of post-vaccination myocarditis from health providers.
There are indications that the number could be higher.
One hundred fifty-five case reports have been submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a database run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration.
Critics note that system is a passive one, allowing anybody to submit a report. But health providers and others are encouraged by authorities, including the CDC, to submit case reports to the system. The actual number of case reports is likely higher than the reported figure of adverse events, because some patients do not submit reports or have reports submitted on their behalf, according to past statements about the VAERS system.
VAERS “is not designed to determine if a vaccine caused a health problem, but is especially useful for detecting unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse event reporting that might indicate a possible safety problem with a vaccine,” health officials say on the system’s website.
The CDC announced recently that it is investigating cases of heart inflammation, or myocarditis, that have cropped up in people who received a COVID-19 vaccine.
