The California state epidemiologist recommended that the state pause the distribution of more than 330,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine after a “larger than normal” number of people showed signs of a possible serious allergic reaction.
The recommendation comes at a terrible time in California, which is experiencing one of the country’s most acute outbreaks. About 40,000 people test positive each day – equivalent to the number of daily cases across the United States through September – and California hospital beds are filling up.
State epidemiologist, Dr. Erica S. Pan, made the recommendation “out of extreme caution” after several people who received the vaccine at a community clinic needed medical attention within 24 hours. Each appeared to have a possible “serious” allergic reaction, and authorities recommended not using other vaccines from that batch until an investigation was completed, the health department said in a statement on Sunday.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an example of a severe allergic reaction is whether a patient needs to go to a hospital or be treated with adrenaline.
The recent reactions were related to the distribution of a vaccine in Petco Park in San Diego, said a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health. It was not immediately clear how the delay would affect the overall distribution of vaccines in the state, which has been unstable and fraught with confusion.
The possible allergic reactions originated from the same batch of Modern vaccines, which had more than 330 thousand doses, among 3.5 million vaccines destined for the state. California distributed less than a third of its allocated vaccines, below the national average, with 2.2 percent of the state’s population having received the first dose, according to a New York Times vaccine tracker.
Allergic reactions are a rare response to some vaccines. Some estimates suggest that for a similar type of coronavirus vaccine, made by Pfizer-BioNTech, the risk of a serious allergic reaction is about 1 in 100,000.