FACT CHECK: Is Holiday Heart Syndrome A COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effect?

COVID-19 is a global disaster that ravaged most parts and shook the entire world.

To curb the virus, experts developed vaccines believed to prevent the manifestation of the disease.

Unexpectedly, the vaccines have faced several pushbacks from some individuals, conspiracy theorists and groups. Is the holiday heart syndrome a COVID-19 side effect, as has been speculated?

Claim

Recently, a news headline about a condition called “holiday heart syndrome” fascinated COVID-19 vaccine skeptics on social media. 

They claimed that the new syndrome is the effect of the COVID-19 vaccination, which will cause anyone infected with this new disease to lose their life. 

Some others said holiday heart syndrome does not exist.

They said the world was trying to make up for deaths arising from coronavirus vaccination. So, they invented the new disease.

“Now they’re blaming people dropping dead on the happy holidays because of course,” one Instagram post sharing the headline said. “They’re totally not just making s— up to cover up for the fact they just tricked people into taking an experimental clot shot that weakened their immune system as they head into cold and flu season.” 

 Verification

“Holiday heart syndrome: Doctors warning about this ‘perfect storm’” was the headline that brought the controversy.

It was published on December 6 by a Fox affiliate in Cleveland, USA.

The post linking the Holiday Heart Syndrome has been flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. 

The article accompanying the headline in the post quotes a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist who explains that “holiday heart syndrome is really this mix, this perfect storm of a lot of different factors that come together during the holiday season that increase our overall risk of having a heart attack.”

Think: eating, drinking and traveling more, combined with exercising and taking care of ourselves less. 

Verdict

Holiday Heart Syndrome is not new. It has been a global risk for a long time.

It even precedes both COVID-19 and its vaccines. 

An extensive search by AllNews Nigeria fact check desk shows that the term was coined in 1978 to conceptualise occurrences of heart arrhythmias in healthy people without heart disease after binge drinking, as quoted by a 2013 National Library of Medicine article’s website. 

The article says, “The name is derived from the fact that episodes were initially observed more frequently after weekends or public holidays.” 

Further searches reveal that some news outlets have  also reported the “holiday heart syndrome” before the pandemic or its vaccines. 

In December 2019, a CNN headline read: “‘Holiday heart syndrome’: What is it and how to avoid it.” 

Also recently, we found out that The New York Times reported that the syndrome is “really just another phrase for alcohol-induced atrial fibrillation, or AFib, which is a rapid, chaotic heart rhythm.”

Medical experts who spoke with our fact check desk when compiling this report explained that atrial fibrillation, one of the most common cardiac conditions that cause the syndrome, is not connected to the virus that causes COVID-19, as has been speculated.

Conclusion

The claim that “holiday heart syndrome” is a side effect of COVID-19 vaccination or an invention doctored to cover for deaths caused by the vaccine is false.