Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) messenger RNA vaccination and myocarditis— beauty and the beast

Abstract

Prior to the 20 th century, several communities and nations were ravished with epidemics and pandemics from infectious diseases that often left in their wake devastation of livelihood and high mortality. 1 With improvements in sanitation and advances in medicine leading to the development of antimicrobials and vaccines, the mortality from infectious diseases waned and was replaced by mortality from chronic diseases. 1 This epidemiologic transition led many to believe that infectious diseases were going to be a thing of the past. But the emergence and re-emergence of new pathogens, such as human immunodeficiency virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), have caused pandemics that reminded the world of the devastation that infectious diseases can cause and of the need for vaccines.