Pharmacist Charles Beaver is excited to receive an additional 200 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the coming days.
He says the doses came as a surprise, as the Corner Drug Store wasn’t expecting any more until the end of May.
Anyone born in 1966 or earlier, or will turn 55 sometime this year, is eligible to make an appointment.
Beaver says he strongly encourages all who are eligible to add their names to the preregistration list online.
“If people have specific questions, I’d encourage them to talk to their health care provider, talk to one of our pharmacists or their home pharmacist, if they’re from another pharmacy,” says Beaver. “This is a very safe and effective way of preventing COVID-19. Every person that receives the vaccine is helping protect everyone in the community and the province. Every time we we have one more person receive a vaccine, we’re that much closer to getting back to some freedom of travel, and the ability to see loved ones that are cut off due to borders and other restrictions.”
The blood clotting side effect, which recently killed a person in Quebec, is extremely rare and very treatable if dealt with in a timely manner, says Beaver
He says he understands that people have questions and concerns about the vaccine and its potential side effects, but ultimately Canadians are significantly more likely to die from the effects of COVID-19 than from the AstraZeneca vaccine.
“I’ll remind everyone that we’ll look at the positives. Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca all share 100% efficacy at preventing hospitalization and death due to COVID-19,” says Beaver. “When you look at the potential negative side effects of AstraZeneca, specifically, the rare form of blood clots are actually treatable. They need to be recognized and treated in a prompt fashion. They’re very rare, and we train each patient and give them a takeaway sheet of information that shows them what to watch out for in the first four to 20 days, and what to do about it, if anything unusual does happen.”
Some of those things patients should look for are shortness of breath, chest pain, swelling in the arms or legs, persistent abdominal pain, severe onset headache, persistent worsening headache, or blurred vision.
Another rarer symptom to look for is skin bruising, or “little pinpoint round spots” that appear anywhere other than the injection site.
“As we know, there was a tragic loss of life in Quebec in the last week,” says Beaver. “A 54-year-old woman has died. Her family actually chose to make a statement, which I thought was amazingly brave and helpful. In that statement, they actually urge others who received the AstraZeneca vaccine to be vigilant. Reading between the lines and hearing the story, she had gone to a local hospital sometime after the onset of symptoms, wasn’t treated there and then finally went to a larger facility. But it would appear that it was too late at that point. They did not say that folks should not get the AstraZeneca vaccine. When you look at this as a statistic, over a million Canadians have now received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Tragically, one person did lose their life. In Canada, 24,163 Canadians have died because of COVID-19. If you do quick math, 37,600,000 Canadians in total. You’re 642 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than you are even having this treatable very rare reaction.”
Currently, New Brunswick only allows those born in 1965 or earlier to get the vaccine. But what if those people have pre-existing conditions?
“A very common question is, ‘I have a clotting disorder, which I’m taking a blood thinner for,'” says Beaver. “It’s a concern and a very logical one. In fact, people who are on a blood thinner are safer than the rest of us because it would contribute to preventing one of these very rare clots from happening. The age restriction in New Brunswick is actually more conservative than any province in Canada. Nova Scotia is now administering the vaccine to folks 40 and over. It’s very, very safe, if managed appropriately and if folks pay attention to what to watch for, as as they should with any vaccine. That’s our job, to make sure that people know what to watch for. If they have a concern, before or after the vaccine, our pharmacists are there to answer those questions.”
Getting the vaccine, even just one dose, can help prevent mass hospitalization and death in the event of an outbreak. Beaver says that the current situation in Nova Scotia should remind New Brunswickers that large outbreaks can happen at any time and without warning.
The pharmacy also won’t receive many more doses throughout the month of May, so those who perhaps pass up the AstraZeneca in favour of waiting for Pfizer and Moderna might be waiting a long time.
Beaver says that just three weeks ago he received a shipment of 270 Pfizer doses, but this Tuesday he will only receive 60 doses.
“It would seem very likely to be much longer than then then they might be otherwise thinking,” says Beaver. “We should really pay attention to what’s happening around us. Nova Scotia had amazing results for months, now the entire province is in lockdown…If people wait until that happens in our backyard, it’s too late.”
Appointments for the AstraZeneca can’t be scheduled until the doses are delivered, which should be by this Monday, but listeners can sign up to be notified on the Corner Drug Store’s website.
Beaver also specified that pharmacists are happy to answer any questions over the phone, but appointments should not be made by phone call.
It ties up the phone lines, and the pharmacy doesn’t have the staff to deal with the demand of phone scheduling.
[CORRECTION: A previous version of this story said that anyone born in 1965 or earlier is eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine. That is incorrect. The correct information is anyone born in 1966 or earlier.]
