The side effects that patients had after their injection of the Covid-19 vaccine are said to be mild in 92% of cases.
- The side effects generally observed after an injection of vaccines against Covid-19 are mild: fever, body aches, headaches, immense fatigue…
- There would be 55 times less risk of having a serious side effect after vaccination than of developing a severe form of Covid-19.
In France, more than 53 million people are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the latest figures published by the government. The majority of them received doses of RNA vaccines… This technology aroused the distrust of part of the population, who suspected these doses of causing adverse effects in the short, medium and long term. But, according to a study published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseasesalmost all of the side effects of these vaccines would be mild.
7.9% serious side effects
To reach this conclusion, the researchers analyzed the side effects reported by more than 298 million people who were vaccinated between December 2020 and June 2021 in the United States. These were recorded via the US System for Reporting Adverse Events from Vaccines (VAERS) where patients, physicians and manufacturers can report observed adverse events. In detail, of the 298 million individuals studied by scientists, 132 million received one or two doses of Moderna and 167 million of Pfizer. So out of all those vaccinated, there were 340,000 reports of side effects. Of these, 27,000 – or 7.9% – were severe, meaning they required hospitalization and 313,000 – or 92% – were mild, such as fatigue, fever , pain at the injection site or even headaches.
No more deaths than with other vaccines
“Older people already have a higher baseline mortality rate than the rest of the population and our results show similar mortality rates to those seen after other vaccines for these ages.“, explains David Shay, one of the authors of the study. Indeed, the scientists also analyzed all the deaths of people vaccinated during the period studied. Thus, 4,471 individuals died but 80% of them were over 60 years old. Finally, the two main causes of these deaths were cardiovascular disease and Covid-19.
16% of patients could not work after the second dose
In a second phase of their work, the researchers also studied the v-safe data. This is a mobile application where vaccinated people indicate their status every day, by answering a specific questionnaire. Here they were able to access the information of almost eight million people. Thus, almost all of the observed side effects were mild. But, after the first dose, 4.5% of the patients could not go to work and, after the second dose, this percentage increased sharply: 16% had to take sick leave. Finally, 0.1% of patients had to be hospitalized following vaccination.
Reassuring data which could perhaps convince the few thousand people who are not yet vaccinated in France.
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