Getting COVID-19 can cause all manner of odd skin reactions. A new study finds some of them, including COVID toes, a measleslike rash and shingles also can be rare, and thankfully brief, side effects of getting the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines.
The minor, though sometimes itchy and annoying, reactions were seen in a database of 414 cases of delayed skin problems linked to the vaccines and reported to health care professionals. The cases were collected between December and February, before the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been authorized, so it was not included.
None caused a life-threatening reaction, a finding the study's senior author Dr. Esther Freeman found reassuring.
“People can get full-body rashes, and that can be surprising and a little scary, but these patients did extremely well, recovered and were able to go back and get their second dose,” said Freeman, director of global health dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
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“For people whose rashes started four or more hours after getting the vaccine, zero percent of them went on to get anaphylaxis or any other serious reaction,” she said. "Zero is a nice number."
The delayed skin responses described in the study often start a day or so after vaccination, but can appear as long as seven to eight days later. They are different from severe and immediate allergic reactions, which occur within the first four hours of getting vaccinated.
The findings appeared Wednesday in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. Becausethe cases include only those reported to a dermatological registry, it’s impossible to say how common they across all people getting the vaccines. In general, the researchers believe them to be rare given the low numbers seen among patients.
While skin reactions to the vaccines can occur, as long as they start more than four hours after vaccination, they are generally not life-threatening.