Shipments of the newly approved novel coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna arrived at Corridor hospitals on Tuesday.
Moderna’s vaccine, which received federal emergency use authorization late last week, arrives in Eastern Iowa just one week after the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine were shipped nationwide.
The new batch is the first vaccine shipment for many hospitals statewide, including Mercy Hospital in Iowa City, making this week’s arrival a “monumental moment” in the pandemic for these facilities, said hospital spokesman Aaron Scheinblum. Two hundred doses arrived at Mercy Iowa City on Tuesday.
University of Iowa Health Care Chief Pharmacy Officer Mike Brownlee confirmed his campus received 1,500 doses of the Moderna vaccine and would finish using its current allotment of the version developed by Pfizer-BioNTech before tapping the new shipment.
Some mild to moderate vaccine reactions reported in Iowa
As of Monday, MercyOne and University of Iowa Health Care said there were no severe reactions to the Pfizer vaccine. Author: Rachel Droze Updated: 6:37 PM CST December 21, 2020
DES MOINES, Iowa As of Monday, neither MercyOne nor the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics (UI Health Care) reported severe side effects from the coronavirus vaccine.
Iowa is scheduled to receive its first shipment of the Moderna vaccine this week.
The Pfizer vaccine first arrived in Iowa last Monday.
While there haven t been serious side effects reported, there have been some mild to moderate reactions.
Marshall County’s COVID-19 death total reached 53 this week with three more recorded.
Iowa has 3,354 deaths since the start of the pandemic including 234 in the last week and 97 since yesterday.
The Iowa Department of Public Health COVID-19 dashboard is showing conflicting data on the cumulative total of cases. Summary statistics displays 262,209 and 277,297 positive cases.
Hospitalizations and infection spread are beginning to slow across the state with Iowa’s positivity rate in the past 14 days dropping to 13.7 percent. Marshall County’s rate dropped from 11.8 percent to 9 percent this week.
There are 746 hospitalized patients including 95 admitted in the last 24 hours. This includes 146 patients in intensive care and 87 on ventilators. It is the third consecutive week hospitalizations have declined, but the number of severe cases persists.
Amid some resistance by healthcare workers, COVID-19 vaccine delivery continues to roll out Print
With early delivery of the first COVID-19 vaccine going smoothly, healthcare leaders are campaigning for clinicians to take and promote the vaccine.
As the first 2.9 million doses of the vaccine began to be delivered this week, three major provider-advocacy groups publicly urged clinicians to take the vaccine.
“Our hope is simple; we urge you to get the COVID-19 vaccine and share your experience with others,” states an open letter from the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association.
An AHA spokesman said that letter stemmed from “public polling we have seen, along with what we are hearing from members when they talk to their workforce.”
Several COVID-19 Vaccines Are Made Using Aborted Fetal Cells
In addition to standard concerns over the safety of COVID-19 vaccines is the moral dilemma of taking vaccines made with aborted fetal cells. For many, this alone is a cause for objection. Several of the vaccine candidates, including AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, are made using aborted fetal cell lines.
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3 The Associated Press
4 and Snopes
5 have labeled the claim as “false,” but is it? As it turns out, fact checkers are relying on semantics to “debunk” this claim. In reality, most thinking individuals are able to determine the truth of the matter once the details are explained.