LOS ANGELES (AP) – California state epidemiologist insists on stopping more than 300,000 coronavirus vaccinations using a Modern Vaccine version because some people have received medical treatment for possible serious allergic reactions.
Dr. Erica S. Pan on Sunday recommended that suppliers stop using lot 41L20A of the Moderna vaccine pending the completion of an investigation by government officials, Moderna, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Federal Food and Drug Administration.
“From an extreme abundance of caution and also the extremely limited supply of vaccine, we recommend that suppliers use other available vaccine supplies,” Pan said in a statement.
According to her, more than 330,000 doses arrived in California between January 5 and January 12 and were distributed to 287 providers.
Less than ten people, all of whom received the vaccine on the same premises, needed medical help over 24 hours, Pan said. No other similar bunches were found.
Pan did not specify the number of cases involved or where it occurred.
However, on January 14, six health workers in San Diego had allergic reactions to vaccines they received at a mass vaccination center. The site has been temporarily closed and now uses other vaccines, reports KTGV-TV.
Moderna said in a statement that the company “is unaware of similar side effects from other vaccination centers that may have administered vaccines of the same fate.”
The CDC said COVID-19 vaccines can cause side effects for several days, including fever, chills, headaches, swelling or fatigue, “which are normal signs that your body is building up protection.”
However, severe reactions are extremely rare. Pan said in a vaccine similar to Moderna, the rate of anaphylaxis – in which an immune system reaction can block breathing and lower blood pressure – was about 1 in 100,000.
The announcement comes as California provinces continue to advocate for more COVID-19 vaccine as the state tries to reduce its infection rate, which has led to record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths.
According to the CDC, California, with a population of 40 million, received about 3.5 million doses and administered only about a third of them.
So far. according to federal data, the state vaccinated just 2,468 people per 100,000 residents, a rate that falls below the national average.
Although Governor Gavin Newsom announced last week that anyone 65 and older is eligible to receive the vaccine, Los Angeles County and others have said they do not have enough doses to vaccinate as many people and are concentrating on the vaccination of health workers. and the most vulnerable elderly people who first live in care homes.
READ MORE: CDC says people with a history of severe allergic reactions can get COVID-19 vaccine
On Monday, the Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent sent a letter to state and county officials asking for authorization to submit COVID-19 vaccinations to schools for staff, community members and students as soon as’ a vaccine for children has been approved. .
“Doing so will help reopen schools as soon as possible and in the safest way possible,” Superintendent Austin Beutner wrote.
California is approaching 3 million cases of coronavirus and more than 33,600 people have died since the start of the pandemic last year, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
The death toll from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County – the most populous country and an epicenter of the state pandemic – is estimated at about one person every six minutes.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District on Sunday suspended some restrictions on the number of pollution control cremations for at least ten days to deal with a backlog in bodies at hospitals and funeral homes.
“The current death rate is more than double the value of years before the pandemic,” the agency said.
California has had about 500 deaths and 40,000 new cases daily in the past two weeks. Although hospitalizations and admissions to the intensive care unit have remained slightly downward, officials have warned that this could stop the full impact of the transfers being felt during Christmas and New Year’s Eve gatherings.
“As numbers in California continue to rise, the total number of individuals who will have serious outcomes will also increase,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Sunday.
In addition to concerns, California is experiencing new, possibly more transmissible forms of COVID-19.
The state health department announced Sunday that an L452R variant of the virus is increasingly appearing in genetic sequences of COVID-19 test samples from several provinces.
The department was first identified in California and other states and states last year, but has been identified more frequently and in several major outbreaks in Santa Clara County in Northern California.
Generally, the variant has been found in at least a dozen provinces. In some places. testing found the variant in a quarter of the samples followed, says Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist and professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
However, not all test samples receive genetic sequencing to identify variants, so their frequency was not immediately clear.
However, health officials said it was related to a Christmas outbreak in Kaiser Permanente San Jose that infected at least 89 staff members and patients and killed a receptionist. The outbreak was blamed on an employee who visited the hospital’s emergency room, wearing an air-powered inflatable Christmas tree costume.
The variant differs from another mutation, B117, which was first reported in the UK and seems to spread much more easily, although it does not appear to make people sicker.
This variant has already appeared in San Diego County and Los Angeles County, announced over the weekend that it has discovered its first case.