Dammit!

[Praktica]

A trained professional has made the judgement that either it isn't a vaccine reaction, or that it is not serious enough to report. This is why self reported reactions are useless - unless the person with the symptoms is medically trained.

Why then does the COVID vaccine website input field have a "Member of the public" option? This is about collection of public health data and by allowing the general public to report suspected adverse reactions the MoH are casting as wide a net as possible to gather this data. Note also that the Medsafe adverse reactions data includes the following:

"An AEFI is an untoward medical event which follows immunisation and does not necessarily have a causal relationship with the administration of the vaccine. The adverse event may be an unfavourable or unintended sign, abnormal laboratory finding, symptom or disease."

By allowing patients who know their own health anomalies better than all too frequent dismissive health 'professionals', especially as GPs are being brow beaten into following the 'accentuate the positive' narrative in regard to vaccine implementation. Keep in mind also that the COVID vaccines have been released with limited historical research data and the feedback from those having them administered are a valuable part of the ongoing research being undertaken in the development of these vaccines.

How many people know enough about medicine, or even their own health, to know when something is an anomaly? I would guess that no action is taken on any self report, until professionals have evaluated it. How often does that happen?