As more and more Tri-Staters receive one of the two COVID-19 vaccinations currently available, doctors are learning more about the side effects that can accompany double injection treatments. Those side effects were strong enough for a small number of vaccinated healthcare professionals to cancel work for the days following their injection.
But health officials anticipated this possibility and came up with a plan.
It is generally accepted that the initial doses of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cause some sensitivity around the injection site, but not much else. However, the second injection of the Moderna vaccine has gained a reputation for packing a greater amount of COVID-like symptoms – mainly pain, fatigue, chills, and fever – for a short time after receiving the injection, while the Pfizer vaccine appears . be milder.
As WCPO has previously reported, local health officials estimated that 20% of those who received Moderna’s second vaccine reported more serious side effects from the second injection than the first.
When Northern Kentucky nurse Taylor Poore received her second dose of Moderna on Monday, she said she could feel the expected increase in symptoms, but they only lasted about eight hours.
“I felt like maybe I had a low temp but nothing, you know, it wasn’t earth-shattering to the point like I felt like I couldn’t work or, you know, something like that. [I] just generally felt tired and sore. “
She said she felt normal again the next morning.
But Dr. Meghan Markovich said even a tiny minority of the vaccine recipients who had to stop working because of the side effects were enough for St. Elizabeth Hospitals – where she has a GP practice and helps with the vaccine rollout – to falter when employees would take their photos. receive.
“We offered different appointment dates for the staff so they would be a little shaky knowing that could potentially happen,” she told WCPO.
In her office of 20 staff, Markovich said an employee called in sick due to side effects from the vaccine.
“Fortunately, I think, that number is pretty low who had to stay home from work,” she said.
Although in southwest Ohio, the majority of vaccines administered were the Pfizer variant – which appears to have milder side effects than Moderna – there is still a small population of long-term health workers who called in sick after their second dose, according to Peter Van Runkle , executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association.
“We have not heard any feedback from members about any really significant responses,” Van Runkle told WCPO. “What we’ve heard is mostly, yes, we’ve had a few people cancel, or one or two usually, or none.”
Van Runkle said he’s seen some national recommendations for health care providers to stagger their staff vaccinations, but his organization – which represents more than 1,000 assisted living, hospice and long-term care facilities across the state – suggested centers get their staff as soon as possible vaccinated.
“Mostly for the long-term carers, it’s been the other way around, like trying to get people to do it instead of saying, ‘Hold on,’” he said.
Van Runkle is concerned that too much hype around the potential side effects of the vaccines could result in fewer people – including health professionals – choosing to get the vaccine when it first becomes available to them.
“Part of the concern among the staff and the things that go to them if they don’t participate was the side effects,” he said. “The story you shared from Moderna that if that spreads, it will create more worry in people because they are already scared.”