A California state epidemiologist is urging discontinuation of more than 300,000 coronavirus vaccines using the Moderna vaccine version because some people have received medical treatment for severe allergic reactions.
Dr. Erica S. Pan on Sunday recommended providers stop using lot 41L20A of the Moderna vaccine until a study is completed by state officials, Moderna, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Federal Food and Drug Administration.
“Out of extreme caution and also recognizing a scarce supply of vaccine, we recommend that providers use another available vaccination schedule,” Pan said in a statement.
She said more than 330,000 lottery doses reached California between Jan. 5 and Jan. 12 and were distributed to 287 providers.
Less than 10 people, who received the vaccine at the same community site, needed medical attention over a 24-hour period, Pan said. No other similar collections were found.
Pan did not specify the number of cases involved or where they occurred.
However, six San Diego health care workers received an allergic reaction to vaccines they received at a major vaccine center on Jan. 14. The site was temporarily closed and is now using other vaccines, according to reports. .
Moderna said in a statement that the company is “unaware of the relative adverse events from other vaccine establishments that may have administered vaccines from the same mast.”
The CDC states that COVID-19 vaccines can cause side effects for a few days which include fever, chills, headache, swelling or fatigue, “which are normal symptoms that your body is protection. ”
However, very severe reactions are rare. Pan said in a vaccine similar to Moderna, the rate of anaphylaxis – in which an immune system reaction can block breathing and cause blood pressure to drop – was around 1 in 100,000.
This news came as California counties continue to demand more COVID-19 vaccines while the state seeks to reduce the rate of their infections, which has led to the highest numbers of hospitals and deaths.
California, with a population of 40 million, has received about 3.5 million vaccine doses and has only given about a third of them, according to the CDC.
So far. the state has vaccinated just 2,468 people per 100,000 residents, a rate that is falling well below the national average, according to federal data.
Although Gov. Gavin Newsom last week said anyone aged 65 and over would be eligible to start receiving the vaccine, Los Angeles County and others have said they do not have enough doses to reduce the number of people vaccinated and that they focus on protecting health care workers and the most vulnerable older people living in care homes first.
On Monday, the director general of Los Angeles United School District sent a letter to state and county public health officials seeking permission to dispense COVID-19 vaccines at schools for staff, local community members and for students once vaccine for children approved.
“This will help reopen schools as quickly as possible, and in the safest way possible,” wrote Superintendent Austin Beutner.
California has nearly 3 million coronavirus cases and more than 33,600 people have died since the outbreak began last year, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
The death rate from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County – the nation’s largest population and the state’s leading pandemic – works out to about one person every six minutes.
On Sunday, the South Coast Air Quality Control District suspended some pollution control limits on the number of cremations for at least 10 days to address the background of corpses at hospitals and funeral homes.
“The current death rate is more than double that of previous years,” the group said.
There have been about 500 deaths and 40,000 new cases in California every two weeks. While hospitals and admissions to intensive care units remained on a slight downward trend, officials have warned of a possible setback when full impact is felt from broadcasts at Christmas and Christmas gatherings. of the New Year.
“As the numbers of cases continue to rise in California, so will the total number of people with adverse outcomes, as will the state,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Sunday.
Adding to concerns, California is experiencing new, perhaps more portable, forms of COVID-19.
The state health department announced Sunday that the L452R variant of the virus is increasingly appearing in a genetic sequence of COVID-19 test samples from several counties.
The variant was recognized last year in California and in other states and countries but has been noted more frequently since November and in several outbreaks in Santa Clara County in Northern California, he said. the department.
In total, the variant was found in at least a dozen counties. In some places. tests have found the variable in a quarter of the samples ordered, said Dr. Charles Chiu, a pathologist and professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California San Francisco.
However, not all test samples have a genetic sequence to identify changes and so it was less frequent.
However, health officials said it was linked to a Christmas-based uprising at Kaiser Permanente San Jose that affected at least 89 workers and patients, killing a receptionist. An employee who visited the hospital emergency room was blamed with air-powered inflatable Christmas tree clothes.
The variant is different from another mutation, B117, which was first reported in the UK and appears to spread much more easily, although it does not appear to make people more ill.
That variant has already surfaced in San Diego County and Los Angeles County announced over the weekend that they had found their first case.