By edhat staff
Officials from the Department of Public Health in Santa Barbara (PHD) have raised concerns about the Modern vaccine and increasing cases of COVID-19.
The Epidemiologist of California, dr. Erica S. Pan, issued a statement on Sunday recommending that suppliers discontinue administration of lot 41L20A of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine due to possible allergic reactions under investigation.
“Our goal is to provide the COVID vaccine safely, quickly and fairly,” said Dr. Pan said. “A higher than usual possible allergic reaction has been reported with a specific amount of Moderna vaccine administered at one community vaccination clinic. Less than ten individuals required medical attention during the 24-hour period. From an extreme abundance of caution and because we also recognize the extremely limited supply of vaccine, we recommend that suppliers use other available vaccine supplies and discontinue the administration of vaccines from Moderna Lot 041L20A until the investigation by the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] and [U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)], Modern and the state is complete. We will provide an update as we learn more. ‘
PHD deputy director Paige Batson said only six of the 330,000 doses of Moderna distributed to 287 providers in the state resulted in allergic reactions that did not require hospitalization.
The shipments arrived in California between January 5 and 12 and the state was not notified of any other group or individual events related to this fate.
Batson said she expects the state to remove this amount of the vaccine, as the allergic reactions have been linked to only one distribution area in Southern California, and that there may be something other than the vaccine.
The state maintains that the risk of a serious adverse reaction is very small. Although there is less information on side effects associated with the Moderna vaccine, a similar vaccine shows that the expected dose of anaphylaxis is approximately 1 in 100,000.
The manufacturer, CDC and the FDA review the amount and related medical information.
Van Do-Reynoso, director of the PHD, states that the positive testing of COVID-19 remains at 16%, with a significant increase in cases over the past week proving that the virus is still spreading.
The department expects an increase in reported outbreaks in the workplace as a result of a new state law that must report on three or more positive cases within two weeks. During the first week of January, there were 15 outbreaks in work environments and 14 outbreaks in the community environment.
From January 9 to 15, most infections were due to gatherings with 75% of those attending a gathering being with family and friends.
PHD reported 342 new cases and five additional deaths on Tuesday. Three individuals were over 70 years of age with underlying health conditions, and two individuals were 50-69 years old. Three of the deaths were related to outbreaks at community care facilities. Two individuals were in Santa Barbara, two were from Santa Maria and one in Goleta.
There are currently 2,465 active cases involving 205 hospitalizations, 49 of which are in the intensive care unit (ICU). The province’s ICU availability remains at 0%.
More details can be found at https://publichealthsbc.org.