evidence: The risk of acute myocarditis associated with COVID-19 mRNA vaccination has garnered intense (social) media attention. However, myocarditis after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination is rare and usually resolves within days or weeks. Moreover, the risks of hospitalization and death associated with COVID-19 are greater than the risk associated with COVID-19 vaccination. Therefore, COVID-19 vaccination should be recommended in adolescents and adults. [...] As in ‘common’ viral myocarditis, myocarditis associated with COVID-19 mRNA vaccination mainly occurs in young adults within 1 week of viral antigen-induced immune activation, but can sometimes occur in vaccine recipients with immune and genetic susceptibility to myocarditis. The risk ratio of myocarditis in a large study from Israel was 3.24 in the first 42 days after the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine2. By contrast, the risk ratio of myocarditis associated with COVID-19 was estimated to be 18.28 (ref.2). Importantly, most of the patients admitted to hospital with post-mRNA-vaccine myocarditis survived and recovered cardiac function within 1–5 weeks after an initial hospitalization of 3–5 days2,3,4,5. In addition, the higher proactive surveillance and public awareness in vaccinated people owing to intense media attention, and the reporting of unrelated myocarditis cases weeks to months after vaccination, might have resulted in an overestimation bias of this surplus risk compared with more passively collected historical data. [...] Montgomery, J. et al. Myocarditis following immunization with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in members of the US Military. JAMA Cardiol.6, 1202–1206 (2021).