The earliest demographics to get COVID-19 vaccines, such as healthcare workers, reported a surprisingly high rate of serious complications from them, according to data the CDC turned over under court order.
Among the 10 million-plus users of the agency's v-safe active monitoring smartphone app through July — 8.5 million of whom signed up between December 2020 and April 2021, before all adults were eligible for COVID vaccines — nearly 8% said they required medical care after receiving the vaccines.
For patients ages 3 and older needing such care, nearly 3 in 4 couldn't rely on telehealth visits. They required urgent care (48%), emergency room (15%) or hospitalization (10%). For infants, who were authorized to receive the jabs this summer and are enrolled in v-safe through parents or guardians, hospitalizations were much lower (2%) but urgent care much higher (66%).
Another 12% of v-safe users reported they were unable to perform normal daily activities, and 13% said they missed work or school, meaning 1 in 3 had more than mild adverse reactions.
