Don’t panic about the Covid vaccine allergy risk

In the coming weeks, you are inevitably going to see a slew of stories in the media about side effects from the licensed vaccines. The first one is already with us. Two healthcare staff – who both have a history of allergic reactions – have reportedly had adverse reactions to the Pfizer vaccine. This has lead to a change in advice about who should get the vaccination. 

It is going to be difficult to initially ignore these stories but I am going to suggest if you don’t ignore them outright then try to dial down the volume. There are a number of good reasons to do this.

Firstly, in the coming weeks and months, we are going to suffer from the most severe form of what is known as ‘observer bias’. We are only going to note and report on possible adverse events, and not the hundreds or thousands of unremarkable vaccinations.