COVID-19, Male Fertility & What You Need to Know

One of the more challenging parts of the COVID-19 pandemic was dealing with the wealth of information coming out day after day, and deciding which resource(s) to trust. Now, well over a year into the pandemic, with a vaccine widely available and restrictions easing across the country, we’re starting to learn about the long-term effects of the disease, including whether COVID itself can impact fertility and if the vaccine should be included in such concerns.

The COVID-19 vaccine

To be clear up front, there is currently no evidence stating that the vaccine (any version) has a negative impact on fertility, for men and women alike. If you have specific concerns about the vaccine on a personal level, please connect directly with your doctor to discuss them. We do not advise relying on internet resources alone, especially anything not authoritative, per this decision. You can read more about a recent study on the vaccine’s lack of impact on male fertility here.

COVID-19 and male fertility

However, there are concerns about the effect of the disease itself on male fertility, particularly in severe cases. Scientists are still only noting that there are troubling associations between decreased sperm quality/quantity after suffering from severe COVID symptoms, not a conclusive link between the two. On the whole, we are still learning a great deal about what it means for someone to be what is known as a COVID long-hauler, or someone who had COVID, recovered, but is still experiencing moderate to severe symptoms.

Regardless of whether you hope to grow your family in the future or not, protecting yourself against COVID will always be advised by the medical community. Please consider taking proactive steps, even now, toward avoiding the risk of contracting the disease. Again, if there are personal vaccine-related concerns, please connect directly with your GP to have a discussion. If there are questions about COVID and male fertility, please contact our office so we can assist.

If you’d like to learn more about male infertility, including causes, symptoms, and treatment, please consider visiting:

Male infertility causes
Male infertility testing
Male infertility treatment