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LOS ANGELES (AP) – California state epidemiologist calls for more than 300,000 coronavirus vaccinations to be stopped using a version of the Moderna vaccine, as some people have received medical treatment for possible allergic reactions serious.
Dr Erica S. Pan on Sunday recommended that suppliers stop using Moderna vaccine lot 41L20A pending the completion of an investigation by state officials, Moderna, the US Centers for Disease Control. United and the Federal Food and Drug Administration.
“Out of extreme caution and also recognizing the extremely limited supply of vaccines, we recommend that suppliers use other available vaccine stocks,” Pan said in a statement.
She said more than 330,000 doses of the batch arrived in California between Jan.5 and 12 and were distributed to 287 vendors.
Fewer than 10 people, all of whom received the vaccine at the same community site, required medical attention in a 24-hour period, Pan said. No other similar group was found.
Pan did not specify the number of cases involved or where they occurred.
However, six health workers in San Diego had allergic reactions to the vaccines they received at a mass vaccination center on January 14. The site has been temporarily closed and is now using other vaccines, KTGV-TV reported.
Moderna in a statement said the company “was not aware of comparable adverse events from other vaccination centers that may have administered vaccines from the same batch.”
The CDC said COVID-19 vaccines can cause side effects for a few days, including fever, chills, headache, swelling or fatigue, “which are normal signs that your body is strengthening its protection. .
However, severe reactions are extremely rare. Pan said in a vaccine similar to Moderna, the rate of anaphylaxis – in which a reaction by the immune system can block breathing and lower blood pressure – was around 1 in 100,000.
The announcement came as counties in California continue to advocate for more COVID-19 vaccine as the state tries to reduce its infection rate, which has led to a record number of hospitalizations and deaths.
California, with a population of 40 million, has received about 3.5 million doses of the vaccine and has only given about a third, according to the CDC.
Until there. the state only vaccinated 2,468 people per 100,000 population, a rate that falls well below the national average, according to federal data.
Although Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that anyone aged 65 and over would be eligible to start receiving the vaccine, Los Angeles County and others have said they don’t have enough doses. to immunize as many people and focused on immunizing health workers. and the most vulnerable elderly people living in nursing homes first.
READ MORE: CDC says people with a history of severe allergic reactions can receive COVID-19 vaccine
On Monday, the principal of the Los Angeles Unified School District sent a letter to state and county public health officials requesting permission to provide COVID-19 vaccines in schools for staff, community members community and students once a children’s vaccine has been approved. .
“This will help reopen schools as soon as possible and in the safest way possible,” wrote Superintendent Austin Beutner.
California is approaching 3 million coronavirus cases and more than 33,600 people have died since the pandemic began last year, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
The death rate from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County – the most populous in the country and the epicenter of the state pandemic – is about one person every six minutes.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District on Sunday suspended certain pollution control limits on the number of cremations for at least 10 days in an effort to deal with a backlog of bodies in hospitals and funeral homes.
“The current death rate is more than double that of pre-pandemic years,” the agency said.
California has recorded about 500 deaths and 40,000 new cases a day over the past two weeks. Although hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care units remained slightly down, officials warned that this could be reversed when the full impact of transmissions at Christmas and New Years gatherings is felt.
“As the number of cases continues to rise in California, the total number of people who will have serious results will also increase,” the State Department of Public Health said in a statement Sunday.
Adding to concerns, California is experiencing new, possibly more communicable, forms of COVID-19.
The state health department announced on Sunday that an L452R variant of the virus is increasingly appearing in the genetic sequencing of COVID-19 test samples from several counties.
The variant was first identified last year in California and other states and countries, but has been identified more frequently since November and in several large outbreaks in Santa Clara County in northern California, said the Department.
Overall, the variant has been found in at least a dozen counties. In certain places. testing found the variant in a quarter of the samples sequenced, said 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 its frequency was not immediately clear.
However, health officials said it was linked to a Christmas outbreak at Kaiser Permanente San Jose that infected at least 89 staff and patients, killing a receptionist. The outbreak was blamed on an employee who visited the hospital emergency room wearing an inflatable air Christmas tree costume.
The variant is different from another mutation, B117, which was first reported in the UK and seems to spread much more easily, although it doesn’t seem to make people any sicker.
This variant has already appeared in San Diego County and Los Angeles County announced over the weekend that it had detected its first case.
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