Michael Whitworth experienced only mild symptoms following his first dose of the Modern COVID-19 vaccine.
“Just arm pain,” he said.
So when it came time for the second dose recently, she didn’t expect to feel too much.
“The second dose was a completely different story,” he explained.
Two hours after the shooting, Whitworth said the pain and soreness in his arm became so severe that “I couldn’t move at all.”
At 10 o’clock, Whitworth said he had a low fever, trembling, chills, his lips were pale and he began to hallucinate.
“It was very, very disabled because I had never hallucinated in my life, so I felt like I was being given an injection of mushrooms or something,” he said.
What Whitworth describes is extremely rare according to the VAERS adverse reporting database. Co-managed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the database tracks side effects after any type of vaccination.
We downloaded the data and analyzed the reports recorded in the first four weeks of the launch of COVID-19 in Florida. The COVID vaccine accounted for more than 90% of all adverse reports submitted by Sunshine State.
As of Wednesday, reports were filed by or on behalf of more than 330 people. Of the 850,000 doses administered as of mid-January, the number of adverse events recorded was less than 0.04% of those who received at least one dose of vaccine in Florida.
“It’s an early warning system,” said Dr. Jason Salemi, an associate professor at the University of South Florida. “You should not look at this database and if you see 300 cases of adverse events, I would not worry. The idea is that, at the population level, we continue to see the same adverse event that we would not expect again and again, it should cause scientists to delve deeper into this. “
Salemi added that the reports connected to the database are not verified, voluntary and sent by anyone.
In the four weeks we analyzed, the most common side effects included chills, fatigue, and dizziness. Reports of women receiving the vaccine were submitted more than three times than those of men.
Six Florida deaths were also reported in the database. The youngest 56-year-old physician in South Florida, Dr. Michael Gregory. Gregory was described as healthy before he died a few weeks after receiving his first dose of Phiizer vaccine. His death remains under investigation.
“We are not saying that these adverse events are specifically related to this vaccine. We only know that it happens after a person has been vaccinated “, Salemi explained when I asked what the public should take from the reports registered in the government database. “You don’t have to take them with a grain of salt, but in many ways they require a lot more investigation to verify the information and make sure it’s really vaccine-related.”
Michael Whitworth intends to report its side effects to the VAERS database.
“I think hallucinations are a bit important. I think people will be a little less uncomfortable knowing that these things can happen. ”
For Whitworth, it’s more than personal. He is a Tampa Bay doctor who is now facing the side effects of the vaccine, but continues to witness the reality of the virus.
“I take care of COVID patients, many of them intubating them, and I take care of them in the operating room. They are in a horrible situation, so much so that I would not want that for any of them and the side effects; yes, you have some, but compared to the real COVID, it’s nothing, ”he said.
Dr. Michael Whitworth also hosts a Facebook page in the Tampa Bay area focused on COVID-19 evidence-based information. Click here for more.
To report side effects to the VAERS reporting system, click here.
You can also report side effects to your phone by clicking here.