Premier Jason Kenney to update Alberta with latest on COVID-19 pandemic
- by Joy Garcia
- in Medicine
- — Dec 18, 2020
The initial doses of the coronavirus vaccines should be administered to health care workers and residents and staff of long-term living facilities, according to Centers for Disease Control recommendations.
Kenney will be joined by Tracy Allard, minister of municipal affairs, Kaycee Madu, minister of justice and solicitor general, Rajan Sawhney, minister of community and social service, and Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province's chief medical officer of health.
Two health workers at Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau experienced worrisome reactions minutes after being vaccinated and one, who had no previous allergies, was hospitalized after she had an anaphylactic reaction with shortness of breath and an elevated heart rate.
The New York Times reported that the person received their shot on Tuesday, and Pfizer confirmed that the company was working with local authorities to investigate the incident.
The UK medical regulator has said that anyone with a history of anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reactions to a medicine or food, should not get the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
Still, problems so rare they don't occur in even very large studies sometimes crop up when a vaccine is used more widely and without the stringent rules of a clinical trial.
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Kevin Smith, president and chief executive of the University Health Network's Michener Institute, where the shot was administered. Another vaccine by Moderna will be reviewed by an expert panel next week and soon afterwards could be allowed for public use.
It also warns that people with a history of developing an allergic reaction to any of the ingredients contained in the vaccine must not take a shot.
Alaska doctors alerted USA authorities, who will continue the monitoring required to tell just how common this kind of reaction really is. According to Dr. Varon, some of the healthcare workers, including many Latino and African American nurses, are skeptical about the vaccine's efficacy and are anxious about unfounded side effects.
Khairy said this in response to a question from Lim Guan Eng (Pakatan Harapan-Bagan) regarding the cost, effectiveness, vaccine coverage and side effects of the vaccine, as well as the rationale for the selection of the vaccine by Pfizer. Doctors are required to report any patient problems.
Vaccine recipients can help with the extra safety tracking.
"This to provide assurance and trust to people that the vaccine is safe", he said. Any responses that suggest concern prompt a phone call for further information.