I want to talk to you today about COVID-19 and the vaccine rollout,
and some really important issues that relate to the heart, COVID-19, and vaccination.
The lockdown really served to reinforce some really important issues related to COVID-19,
these emerging strains and this Delta variant, and the need for vaccination.
And the answer is absolutely yes. If you've got heart disease, cardiovascular disease,
or indeed any other significant disease, it's really important to get vaccinated because
you're more likely to suffer from side effects and have complications from COVID-19. So, absolutely,
if you've got heart disease or any other disease, you should get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The risk of blood clots is extremely, extremely low. It does happen. It's well reported. It's
definitely a side effect, but it's extremely, extremely rare. And so we strongly advocate
that if you fall into the designated categories of people who are eligible for the different types of
vaccine, Pfizer versus AstraZeneca based on the ages, that you do proceed and get vaccinated.
If you're worried about this, you can absolutely have a discussion with your general practitioner,
who'll be able to advise you further on whether to go ahead. But the general message is
these vaccines save lives and for us to open up as a community,
we need to get the community vaccinated.
Yes, but about 99.999% of people will not have these complications. These complications are super
rare and it's problems called myocarditis and pericarditis. And what that means is just fancy
medical words for inflammation of the heart muscle or inflammation of the lining around the heart
muscle. Now these complications have been reported in just a handful of people around the world,
and thankfully to the best of my knowledge, all of them recovered uneventfully.
Well, we do know the AstraZeneca vaccine is slightly more likely to cause blood clots,
but that's been managed by prescribing which age groups can and can't have that vaccine. So
at the end of the day, that everything we do in medicine has a very small side effect rate
and really the path out of this COVID-19 problem is vaccination of the population.
Long COVID is a syndrome that arises after infection with COVID-19.
Long COVID has become quite an issue in countries where they've seen a lot of COVID-19 infection,
such as the United Kingdom and America. We've seen certainly some cases of this
in Australia, and I think if we can't get on top of the vaccination program,
this will be something we have to manage. So what's the answer to long COVID? The answer is
let's avoid getting it in the first place, and the way to do that is vaccination.
Sure, I am. I've had both doses. I'm fully vaccinated against COVID-19,
was a month ago already. We're told that very soon there'll be a million
doses of the Pfizer vaccine arriving weekly. So really now it's over to us, the people, to roll-up
our sleeves and get vaccinated. And really the only way out of this cycle of lockdown, hotel,
quarantine, border closures, travel restrictions - the only way out is vaccination of us all.
So I urge you to strongly consider vaccination, and certainly us at the
Victor Chang and our staff are doing that very actively at the moment. Thank you very much.