Adverse Events Update 12/28/2020
As of December 28th, 2.13 million Americans received their first dose of the COVID19 vaccine; 11.45 million doses have been shipped to US providers.
Among the 2.13 million Americans, there have been only 353 people (that’s 0.017%) who reported an adverse event to the CDC.
Among the 353 people that experienced adverse events…
• The vast majority have mirrored mild-to-moderate reactions in clinical trials (see first figure; these are not mutually exclusive)
• Only 8 of these events are classified as “serious” (see second figure)
• Of the 8, 4 people were hospitalized
• 0 have resulted in death
• 73% of the events occurred in young adults aged 18-49
• 2 events were severe allergic reactions (anaphylactic shock)
Adverse events for COVID19 vaccinations (and all vaccinations by the way) are tracked and reported within the CDC Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). This information is ALL public and you can play around with tables and charts here: https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html. This system even allows you to read the physician notes on what exactly happened with each patient. It’s incredibly transparent.
Keep in mind that not every system is perfect; there are some limitations to VAERS. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to VAERS. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind.
Love, YLE
Data Source: https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html
Graphs: By yours truly