With a pair of vaccines developed relatively quickly and sent into production at top speed, some may have wondered if there might be any adverse side effects from the vaccine in the first weeks of its use. In Saskatchewan so far, that hasn't been the case. 

At last count, the province had administered over 34,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Out of all those doses, there haven't been many side effects popping up, and the ones that have come up have been minor. 

"As with all vaccines, we expect some adverse events," said Saskatchewan's Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab. "We watch for adverse events with any vaccine, whether it's influenza or any other vaccine and we investigate that and we report that nationally... We get daily updates."

According to Dr. Shahab, there have been ten or fifteen allergic reactions to the vaccine so far. Most of these cases had mild symptoms such as tingling of the face, though one case did result in a more serious reaction. 

"We've had one anaphylaxis that was managed safely," he said. "Many of the adverse events have been well-described in the clinical trials and in the product monograph. They have been managed because after vaccination you wait fifteen minutes if you have a history of allergies."

Most of these cases so far have happened in people who have had a history of allergies, so all of them were being closely monitored at the time. The number of people reacting has been low enough, and managed well enough, that health authorities in Saskatchewan don't seem to be worried. 

"At this point, the signal is not of any concern compared to what is known about these vaccines and what we were expecting, what's known about other vaccines," Dr. Shahab said. "But again, this is something that I think we should watch for in terms of waiting 15 minutes and if you have any allergies letting the staff who are immunizing know."

Dr. Shahab added that as more and more vaccines come in, they can better compare their rates with both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines with the rates of other provinces. He also said the relatively minor risk is far outweighed by the benefit of being immunized against COVID-19.