HJAR Jul/Aug 2021

28 JUL / AUG 2021 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS DIRECTOR’S DESK ALOGUE COLUMN SECRETARY’S CORNER COVID-19 can cause serious, life-threat- ening complications, and there is no way to predict how it will affect someone who gets COVID-19. Health experts have found pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to become severely ill from COVID-19 compared to their nonpregnant counterparts. Pregnant women are at a higher risk of being hospitalized, admit- ted to the intensive care unit, and placed on ventilation support. All this needs to be avoided, and the best way to do so is to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccines are the best way to reduce the risk of getting COVID-19 or, if a person does get it, from becoming severely ill. Arkansas received its first confirmed COVID-19 case in March 2020. We now & COVID-19 VACCINATION PREGNANCY have three authorized vaccines available to protect the citizens of Arkansas. Some people may be hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine because it is new; however, it is important for people to know that it is safe and effective. The available vaccines were required to go through robust safety reviews and clinical trials. The data from those clinical trials have been carefully reviewed, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found them to be both safe and highly effective with no significant safety concerns identified. After approval of the vaccines, two very rare side-effects were identified: anaphylaxis associated with mRNA-based vaccines and blood clots with the adenovirus-based vaccine. In both cases, following careful review of the