As Minnesota health care centers prepare to receive boxes with COVID-19 vaccine vials packed in dry ice, some questions remain about who should get the shots as well as the vaccine’s long-term effects.
Children, pregnant women and mothers who breastfeed will not be vaccinated in the initial waves because safety and efficacy studies are not yet complete.
In Minnesota, everyone who gets the two-dose vaccine will be given a card that will prove that they are inoculated, but researchers still don’t know how long immunity protection will last.
Clinical trials on the two vaccines that are expected to get federal emergency approval this month have demonstrated safety and 95% effectiveness in the short-term.
But some of the 40,000 participants in the trial for the Pfizer version of the vaccine, for example, might have gotten an infection that was not apparent.
“The end point was symptomatic disease,” said Dr. Melanie Swift, an occupational medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. “They did not take these 40,000 people and test them to see if they had asymptomatic disease.”
That could mean that even though some people have gotten the shot, they still might be asymptomatic spreaders of the new coronavirus.
Many questions and unknowns will eventually be answered as both vaccines, as well as others, are slated for follow-up studies for another two years.
Both vaccines were developed at an unprecedented speed, but doctors and health officials say that the most critical evaluation standards were not compromised.
“Other vaccine studies, when they go through the phase three trials … generally have about 5,000 to 6,000 people,” said Dr. Abinash Virk, an infectious disease expert at the Mayo Clinic. By comparison, enrollment in both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines was 74,000.
“From a scientific perspective we know that we can rely on the data that we are getting through these studies because of all these safety standards,” Virk said.
Still, reports out of the United Kingdom, where shots entered arms earlier this week, reveal that some recipients suffered allergic reactions.
Virk said that issue should be studied, but that the initial trials didn’t pick up any similar side effects.
“We want to be very conscious about it. We want to be proactive about how we handle the allergies,” Virk said. “There is more data to support safety than the two anecdotes of allergic reaction.”
Federal regulators could comment on the issue Thursday as part of the Pfizer vaccine approval recommendation after British health authorities warned that those with a history of severe allergic reactions should skip the vaccine for now.
The most common side effects of both vaccines were fatigue, headache and body aches, most typically after the second booster shot. Most were mild to moderate, Virk said, and went away after seven days.
“We are all very eager to get to the other side of this pandemic,” Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said. “We do believe that the vaccines coming to us are the critical tool that is going to allow that to happen.”
Another 82 Minnesotans died from COVID-19 complications, along with 4,539 new confirmed cases, state health officials reported Wednesday.
The pandemic has claimed 4,109 lives in the state. Since Thanksgiving, there have been 734 deaths, an average of 54 new deaths reported each day.
Much of the toll has been among long-term care residents, who account for 66% of all deaths in the state. Fifty-one of the deaths reported Wednesday were residents of nursing homes or assisted living facilities.
Pressure on the state’s hospitals has eased somewhat.
Hospitalizations of COVID-19 cases has dropped slightly, with 1,187 patients receiving noncritical care, a one-day decrease of 5%.
An additional 358 were in intensive care units, a decrease of one from the previous day.
Statewide, 90% of the 1,212 ICU beds are in use.
Minnesota is seeing about 87 new cases for every 100,000 residents. Although that is down from a high of 123.3 eight days earlier, it is still considered to be in the danger zone.
“The rate of case growth … is a full 60% higher than it was just a month ago,” Malcolm said.
However, the Thanksgiving holiday has not shown signs so far that it sparked a new wave of infections.
“We hope and are perhaps getting some early signs that the increase we expected from Thanksgiving was moderated by people changing their plans,” Malcolm said.
Still, it could take four weeks for any impacts to play out, although case numbers may be difficult to interpret because Minnesota ordered bars, restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues to shut their doors a week before the holiday.
Minnesota officials have prioritized that the first vaccine doses will go to health care workers and long-term care residents. But with 500,000 people in those two groups and 183,400 shots expected to be delivered this year, the list has been winnowed down to target those at highest risk.
The Mayo Clinic will focus its first vaccination efforts on people who work in COVID-19 units, the emergency room and emergency medical services personnel.
“As we get more and more vaccine we will be expanding eligibility to more and more groups of health care personnel based on their occupational risk,” said Swift, who helps lead the clinic’s COVID-19 vaccine allocation work group.
Mayo is one of 25 sites in Minnesota that will receive vaccine shipments. Unlike smaller health care facilities, it has the specialized freezers to store the Pfizer vaccine, which must be kept at -94 degrees.
It will ship vaccine to other facilities in the region, where vials can be stored for five days under normal refrigation. But once the vial is tapped, it must be used within six hours.
The Moderna vaccine needs to be frozen, but it can be safely kept in a standard freezer. That vaccine accounts for 74% of all the doses Minnesota expects this year.
Since COVID-19 was first detected in the state in March, 363,719 have tested positive for the virus. Of those, 320,233 are considered to be no longer infectious and don’t need to be isolated.
A total of 39,591 test results were reported to the Minnesota Department of Health Tuesday, a one-day increase of 44%.
Glenn Howatt
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(c)2020 the Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
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The people in Great Britain, that had food allergies, reacted to the vaccine very severely. I have several food allergies, so I will not get the vaccine. In fact one of the Doctors on Fox News, Doctor Sapphire, stated that further testing needs to be done, before the vaccine is given to anyone, with food allergies. Even if I did not have food allergies, who knows what the long term effects will be, from this vaccine.
We already know what the long term affect of unreasonable totalitarian lockdowns are . If you don’t want the vaccine don’t take it.
BUT with firm after firm, ALREADY making waves about “THEY WILL MANDATE all workers, get the vaccine or lose your job”, and even some business talking about mandating it for all their customers, DO WE EVEN have a choice in the matter anymore??
But, what will happen to those of us who decide not to take the vaccine? Will we still be under some sort of lockdown by not being able to go to concerts, sporting events or travel? So much for freedom of choice…..
SOUNDS LIKE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE ANTI CHRIST.
no job,no food no wages 666
Not just that, but you could lose your job, your kid won’t get to enroll/take school, and there’s a good likely hood you won’t be able to shop either…
So it literally becomes a “COMPLY OR ELSE”!
WE are the borg, you will be vaccinated.. RESISTANCE Is futile!
Back in March, we were told that we would need to lock down for just 15 days. Lies, lies and more lies!
A very good assisted living facility in my area has sent out a notice that they’ll soon be receiving vaccines to administer to their residents. They were thrilled about this, and they said one of the benefits would be so “we can return to normal.” If normal means taking a medicine that’s caused serious side effects — actually, what sound like severe cases of the disease itself — in young and resilient people and injecting it into elderly and frail people, then watching people die must be part of normality. My blood ran cold when I read the notice.
AND especially when you hear politician after politician say “EVEN WITH vaccines, we will still be in lockdowns/mask mandates for months to come’, EXACTLY HOW in the hell “are we getting back to normal”??!
“We hope and are perhaps getting some early signs that the increase we expected from Thanksgiving was moderated by people changing their plans,”
Hope all you want to. There is no way to prove one way or the other the impact, if there was one, that the “stay at home” orders may have had.
Sadly, I don’t see a happy ending to any of this. “Children, pregnant women and mothers who breastfeed will not be vaccinated in the initial waves because safety and efficacy studies are not yet complete.” If safety and efficacy studies are not complete then why are these vaccines even being put out there?? No one should be taking these vaccines! There is no way you can rush a vaccine. It takes years to prove it’s safety, no matter what anyone says. I will never take it. I’ll take my chances on Covid even though I will probably be punished for not getting the vaccine. I am 68, healthy, and will live free, or die.
And you can BET, firms are loving the thought, of being able to FIRE EVERYONE who refuses to take the vaccine…
anybody see that itty bitty microchip floating around in that syringe?
capricorn1, I also was thinking the same. Gates is just as corrupt as the rest of ‘em!