A new study suggests that some COVID-19 vaccine side effects — from “COVID arm” to “COVID toes” — are not dangerous and are short-lived.
The study found that the vaccine reactions were common among COVID-19 vaccine patients.
- The cases were collected from December to February for those who received Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
- This was before the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was approved for use in the United States.
The study also found that “most patients with first dose reactions did not develop a second dose reaction, and no patients in the registry developed serious adverse events after the first or second dose.”
None of the reactions caused a life-threatening reaction, the study’s lead author, Dr. Esther Freedom, told USA Today.
- “People can get full-body rashes, and that can be surprising and a little scary, but these patients did extremely well, recovered and were able to go back and get their second dose,” Freeman, director of global health dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, told USA Today.
- “For people whose rashes started four or more hours after getting the vaccine, zero percent of them went on to get anaphylaxis or any other serious reaction,” she said. “Zero is a nice number.”
COVID-19 toes is also a COVID-19 symptom
It’s interesting that “COVID toes” popped up on the list of vaccine side effects since it is also a symptom of COVID-19 itself. In April 2020, experts identified “COVID toes” as a symptom, saying it might be the skin’s reaction to how the novel coronavirus is moving throughout the body, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
- Per ABC News, the “COVID toes” symptom suggests that “the skin could be a kind of window about what may be happening with COVID-19 inside the body.”