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UPDATE: COVID-19 Vaccine for Home Care Workers

Massachusetts COVID-19 Command Center (1/08/21)
As a member of the home-based healthcare worker community, you play an important role in protecting the health of some of the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable residents, as well as the health of yourself, your families and communities. You are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in Phase 1 of the vaccine roll-out.

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What You Need to Know About the COVID-19 Vaccine

The Home Care Alliance (January 6, 2021)

The Vaccines
Since the Pfizer vaccine requires extreme cold storage, it seems more likely that agencies would be approved to administer the Moderna vaccine. The Department of Public Health is still working out the logistics for home care workers to be vaccinated and are actively clarifying where each group resides on the state’s COVID-19 vaccination prioritization list and DPH will update the information at When can I get the COVID-19 Vaccine? from Mass.gov on a weekly basis.
As DPH moves through the prioritization phases, additional information will be forthcoming regarding groups within each phase, vaccination clinics and access. Phase 1 vaccination plan is projected to continue through February 2021, followed by Phase 2 which is projected to run through April 2021, with vaccine being available to the public in Phase 3 projected to start in May 2021. Groups are placed sequentially within each Phase.

Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine
On December 11, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued the first emergency use authorization (EUA) for a vaccine for the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, for distribution in the U.S. by December 15.
The most commonly reported side effects, which typically lasted several days, were pain at the injection site, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, and fever. Of note, more people experienced these side effects after the second dose than after the first dose, so it is important for vaccination providers and recipients to expect that there may be some side effects after either dose, but even more so after the second dose.

Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine
On December 18, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the second vaccine, Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, developed by the Cambridge-based company.
Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine is administered as a series of two doses, one month apart. From the data analysis of over 30,000 enrolled in an ongoing randomized, placebo-controlled study conducted in the U.S., the most commonly reported side effects, which typically lasted several days, were pain at the injection site, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, swollen lymph nodes in the same arm as the injection, nausea and vomiting, and fever. Of note, more people experienced these side effects after the second dose than after the first dose, so it is important for vaccination providers and recipients to expect that there may be some side effects after either dose, but even more so after the second dose.