The CDC has published the first comprehensive study of the side effects experienced by patients receiving the new COVID vaccines this week in the United States. Although these trends were recorded during the initial approval tests, that was a relatively small number of people. This study recorded the effects felt by nearly 14 million people. While none of the vaccines cause major medical problems and are still considered safe, many patients have reported some negative effects in the hours and days after being injected. But the most curious figure revealed in the study is that women seem to experience negative side effects significantly more often than men. (CBS San Francisco)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the results of a study that examined the first 13.7 million people received the vaccine and found that women experienced worse side effects than men.
Of the patients who reported side effects such as fatigue, injection site pain, fever, or chills to the agency, 79.1% were female, although 61.2% of the vaccinated people were women.
The CDC study doesn’t specify exactly when women experience more intense side effects than men. But the overall findings are consistent with research on other vaccines.
The full report on the study is available here from the CDC. The study was conducted between December 14, 2020 and January 13, 2021. Only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were studied, as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had not approved its emergency authorization studies at the time.
The good news is that 90.8% of the side effects patients experienced were classified as “not serious”, while only 9.2% were described as serious. The two most common side effects were headache and fatigue, while a slightly smaller percentage of patients experienced dizziness. 113 post-vaccination deaths were recorded, the vast majority of which were among nursing home residents. In no case were the vaccines held responsible for the deaths.
To come back to the gender gap, 61.2% of the vaccines were given to women, but female patients made up 78.7% of the adverse event reports. That seems statistically significant, doesn’t it? Not being a doctor, I couldn’t even guess what could be different between male and female patients that would make one sex worse than the other. But, strictly speaking as a quarterback in an armchair and a layman, I wondered if the number of patients with side effects in both genders was actually about the same, but some of the men in the study were just too cocky to admit they were feel good. (My wife, who is also not a doctor, immediately skipped that suggestion, saying that men are by far the bigger “whines” when they get sick.)
Another interesting data point that came to light in the study is that most reports of adverse events were recorded after the second admission, appearing almost twice as often as reports after the first admission. This ties in with anecdotal evidence I have heard online and from a number of published media reports. And according to medical authorities, this phenomenon was not only predicted, but is actually a positive sign that indicates that your immune system has triggered a response.
These common symptoms are usually signs that the vaccine has triggered a response from your immune system.
And that’s what it should do.
“When you feel sick or have a fever, your body is largely responding,” said Dr. Debra Powell, chief of infectious diseases at Tower Health in Pennsylvania, at Healthline. “It’s usually very short-lived and much better than getting COVID and being sick or in hospital for two weeks.”
You can read through the entire report for yourself, but it looks like the overall news remains good. Serious side effects were minimal and usually related to other underlying medical conditions. Now let’s get those numbers to the point where the government will be forced to give up all mask mandates and the rest of this shit. Personally, I plan to burn all my masks in the campfire during our family’s 4th of July celebration.
