Specialist confirmed allergic reactions to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines at a mass vaccination site

Healthcare providers can play a key role in reaching the target for vaccine uptake through educating the public on the risk may be of severe allergic reactions to COVID-19 vaccines. Thus, it is important to resolve reports in the literature which present conflicting data on vaccine safety. We performed a prospective study of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccinations administered at the Albany Community Vaccination Center. All potential vaccinees to the site were screened for allergic history prior to triage by a board-certified allergist. In the first 14 days of operation, our site vaccinated 14,655 individuals, 3.9% of which had a personal history of anaphylaxis. While some vaccine recipients had non-allergic complications, none of the visitors suffered any objective, immediate allergic symptoms. Our findings indicate that specialist-confirmed rates of immediate allergic reaction to mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccination are far lower than self-reported rates defined by subjective, unconfirmed symptoms.