Health officials: 29 develop severe reactions to vaccines
U. S. health officials said they have reports of at least 29 people developing severe allergic reactions to the coronavirus vaccines, but they stress that the risk for most people is low.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday released its latest count of side effects suffered by more than 5.3 million people who have been vaccinated. The 29 had suffered anaphylaxis, a life- threatening allergic reaction that can be controlled t hrough an epinephrine injection.
That’s a rate of about 5.5 cases per million people, which is roughly four times higher than the rate seen in a study of people who got flu shots.
The CDC also published a more detailed study of the first 1.9 million Americans vaccinated as of Dec. 23. Among that group, 21 of suffered the severe allergic reaction. CDC had full data on 20 of the cases, and none of them died, agency officials said. Nineteen got epinephrine and four were hospitalized.
Anyone who has a severe reaction to a first dose should not get a second dose of the vaccine, the CDC says.
Meanwhile, New York’s governor threatened to fine hospitals if they don’t use their allotment of COVID19 vaccine fast enough. His South Carolina counterpart warned health care workers they have until Jan. 15 to get a shot or move to the back of the line. California’s governor wants to use dentists to vaccinate people.
With frustration rising over the sluggish rollout of the vaccine, state leaders and other politicians around the country are turning up the pressure, improvising and seeking to bend the rules to get shots in arms more quickly.
U. S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Wednesday that the government will allow more drugstores to start giving vaccinations to speed delivery.
If health workers aren’t lining up fast enough, he said, it is OK to expand eligibility to lower- priority groups.
“We need to not be overly prescriptive in that, especially as we see governors who are leaving vaccines sitting in freezers rather than getting it out into people’s arms,” he said.
As of Wednesday, more than three weeks into the U. S. vaccination campaign, more t han 5.3 million people had gotten their first shot out of 17 million doses distributed, according to the CDC. While that is believed to an undercount because of a lag in reporting, health officials are still well behind where they wanted to be.
Across much of the country, health care workers and nursing home residents are being given priority for the initial, limited supplies of the vaccine at this stage, but pressure is building to let other groups step up, and some states have given the OK for the elderly to start receiving shots.
The slow rollout has been blamed on a multitude of problems, including a lack of funding and direction from Washington, mismatches between supply and demand, a patchwork of approaches by state and local governments, distrust of the vaccine, and disarray created by the holidays.
The U. S. has an estimated 21 million health care workers and 3 million residents of nursing homes and other long- term care centers.