The world woke up to the breaking news: the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine against the Coronavirus or COVID-19 has almost killed a health care worker.
The trending news arrives from the Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau, Alaska.
In this hospital, 144 people received the vaccine, and among those two health care workers.
The first one, a middle-aged woman with no clinical history of allergies, developed a reaction that brought her to intensive care.
She received the shot, and after only ten minutes, she had an anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine.
She had an elevated heart rate, skin rash, and lack of breath.
The health care worker received right away, a shot of epinephrine which is a common treatment for critical allergic reactions.
But obtaining no results, she had to receive an epinephrine drip and steroids.
As soon as the doctors tried to stop the drip, the violent symptoms surfaced again, leaving no other option than moving the woman to the intensive care department.
The second health care worker had a lighter allergic reaction, with an itchy throat, lightheadedness, and puffy eyes within ten minutes from taking the shot.
Treated in the ER, he went back to normal conditions in about one hour.
In Great Britain, two women had a very similar allergic reaction, and both recovered.
Twitter this morning was showing as a trending topic, Pfizer and the vaccine worries of thousands of users.
The European Vaccine Day.
In Europe, the so-called Vaccine Day will happen on the 27th of December in a coordinated action and efforts to defeat the virus.
European Union Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, declared that all of the twenty-seven countries members of the European Union will start the vaccination program on the same day.
She also clarified that
"In total, we have bought more than enough doses for everyone in Europe. And we will be able to support our neighbors and partners around the world through COVAX so that no one is left behind."
On her official Twitter, she says:
"To end the pandemic, we need up to 70% of the population vaccinated. This is a huge task. So let's start rapidly with the vaccination together, like 27, on the same day. As we have been united through the pandemic, we will get out of it together & united.".
French President Macron got infected.
In the meanwhile, while I am writing this article, the news about France's President Emmanuel Macron tested positive for the virus breaks in.
He will isolate himself for seven days and will keep on working from the remote.
Macron declared just a few days ago that he did not agree with the Vaccine day.
He explained how he didn't trust it as:
"We don't know everything about this vaccine because we don't know everything about this virus."
The country that has been hit the worst by the Coronavirus is the United States.
Yesterday the USA registered a new double record with over 250.000 contagious and 3.700 deaths in one day.
The overall cases are almost 17 million and 1,65 million deaths.
But though Macron got infected, a few days after he declared perplexities upon the vaccine, he may have a point.
Vaccines take an average of ten to fifteen years to be developed.
This Pfizer and BioNTech took less than a year.
If we think about it, it is scary.
But how much are we willing to put at stake for our freedom?
On one side, we have the COVID-19, that as a tsunami, took away lives, health, put the economy on a frail rail.
On the other side, we have a new-born vaccine, we don't know anything about it.
We don't know the long-term effects of the Pfizer and BioNtech vaccine, but we also know almost anything about the short-term ones.
The French Green Passport.
In France, the center-right deputy (UDI) Valérie Six proposed a green passport or passeport vert for people who will take the vaccine.
This initiative was commented as:
"We could take the example of Israel, which grants each vaccinated person a green passport, allowing them to go to places of culture, restaurants.
Ultimately, to find a normal life.
Our group considers that such a measure would be likely to encourage the French to be vaccinated and to make people aware that vaccination makes it possible to protect themselves, but also others.".
Could this be implemented in the United States of America?
Considering the growing number of Americans willing to get the shot before the end of the year, and we are talking about millions of people, the answer seems pretty clear.
The green passport could be a way for people to proceed with the vaccine, playing the card of a nostalgic feeling of what life was like before the pandemic situation.
Another side of the story is that the firsts able to get the vaccine will be people working in the health care system.
Doctors, nurses, caretakers, and employees working in retirement homes are the first in line.
Elderly people will have the precedence as well, due to their condition at risk.
I have been reading tweets for the whole morning, and the ideas are very contradictory among them.
The leading ones are those expressing a sense of worry, mostly, upon the secondary effects of the vaccines.
Some users were also pointing out the fact that how risky could it be to expose our health care workers to be vaccinated first?
One user, in particular, was wondering about what could happen in case this vaccine didn't work and what would happen to society.
If we think about it, he has some good points as well.
Let's be honest.
Society can survive without a different kind of work, but not without medical workers and even more, in the middle of a world pandemic crisis.
Doctor Jesse O’Shea, from Atlanta, made available for the public his chart about the secondary effects of the various vaccine brands.
This is his comment about it:
"Okay Twitter, you asked for it! Here is the updated vaccine comparison & "side effects" I chose the highest prevalence cohort, which was the younger group. Moderna comes with more side effects than Pfizer, especially after dose 2 though overall still not more than Shingrix."
You can check it right here:
I guess that either one way or the other, we must find and face a solution to the pandemic if we want to win our world, as we used to know it, back.
Feel free to express your valuable opinion about the COVID-19 vaccine, I will be more than happy to read all of them.
Comments / 56