In COVID-19 clinical update #56, Daniel Griffin notes increasing hospitalization in children and young adults, Pfizer vaccine efficacy results in 12-15 year olds, rapid self administered nucleic acid and antigen tests, mRNA vaccine efficacy in real world conditions, and improvement of long COVID after vaccination.
Hosts: Daniel Griffin and Vincent Racaniello
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Links for this episode
- Pfizer mRNA vaccine is 100% effective in 12-15 year olds (Pfizer) 5:32
- Cue at-home PCR test receives FDA EUA (Cue) 8:11
- DxTerity COVID-19 saliva nucleic acid at-home test (Amazon) 9:42
- T-Detect T cell test (T-Detect) 10:09
- GSK submits EUA for VIR-7831 (GSK) 17:26
- Letters read on TWiV 738 25:54
- Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!
Intro music is by Ronald Jenkees
Send your questions for Dr. Griffin to daniel@microbe.tv
Dr. D. seems really tired
I love all the TWIV podcasts and really enjoy listening to them.
I just wanted to point out in this podcasts that Dr. Griffen (I believe that is who stated this) stated that a vaccinator needs to aspirate before injecting the vaccine. This is no longer standard practice when vaccinating and especially during these pandemic times it could be a waste of a vaccine dose unnecessarily. The CDC states “Aspiration before injection of vaccines or toxoids (i.e., pulling back on the syringe plunger after needle insertion but before injection) is not necessary because no large blood vessels are present at the recommended injection sites, and a process that includes aspiration might be more painful for infants (20).”
At Immunize.org it is asked -“Do you need to aspirate before giving a vaccination?
No. ACIP does not recommend aspiration when administering vaccines because no data exist to justify the need for this practice. There are data that show that aspiration is more painful for the vaccine recipient. IM injections are not given in areas where large vessels are present. Given the size of the needle and the angle at which you inject the vaccine, it is difficult to cannulate a vessel without rupturing it and even more difficult to actually deliver the vaccine intravenously. We are aware of no reports of a vaccine being administered intravenously and causing harm in the absence of aspiration.
-While giving an injection, a nurse had blood return in the syringe upon aspirating. What should she have done with the vaccine?
Although aspiration is not recommended, if you do aspirate and get a flash of blood, then the procedure is to withdraw the needle and start over. The syringe, needle, and contaminated dose of vaccine should be discarded in a sharps container, and a new syringe and needle should be used to draw up and administer another dose of vaccine. This is a waste of expensive vaccine that could be avoided by simply not aspirating.”
Just wanted to clarify this because it always comes up in immunization conferences and covid-19 vaccination pods.
Thank you for the great podcasts.
Maureen Polokoff BSN, RN (and PHN who has probably vaccinated over 5000 people in the last 12 weeks)