California Resident Dies Hours After Getting Vaxed for Coronavirus
All fifty US states and countries around the world have begun large-scale vaccination campaigns against SARS CoV-2, the coronavirus which causes COVID-19. In some nations, a broad range of complications, from temporary facial paralysis to death, have been reported among small numbers of people receiving vaccines.
The Placer County Sheriff’s Office, state and federal agencies are investigating after a resident passed away shortly after receiving a coronavirus vaccine, local media including CBS13 and KTLA5 have reported.
In a statement on its Facebook page, the sheriff’s office indicated that the individual in question, who died Thursday, had tested positive for COVID-19 in late December, and had been “administered a COVID-19 vaccine several hours before their death”.
The sheriff’s office stressed that “any reports surrounding the cause of death are premature, pending the outcome of the investigation,” and did not provide any further information, such as the deceased person’s age, medical condition, or which of the two vaccines authorised for use in California was used.
The state began administering COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to residents 65 years and over, health care workers, residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities earlier this month.
The California Department of Health told KTXL that it takes “these instances seriously,” and that it was “working with our government partners to investigate the cause,” and promised to “continue to use data and science to determine how to proceed”.
Earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief White House COVID-19 medical advisor, advised people already confirmed to have been infected by SARS-CoV-2 not to get vaccinated within three months of getting the virus. His recommendations have been challenged by other officials, who have said that people can be vaccinated as soon as a vaccine becomes available.
Local residents told CBS Sacramento that the Placer County person’s death has left them apprehensive about getting vaccinated.
“I’m really relying on the vaccine to cure this pandemic. Because I have a 9-month old daughter I’m trying to protect. Now I think it’s something I should definitely put more research into,” California mom Britni Tucker said. Auburn resident Eric Parra told the CBS affiliate he never planned to get vaccinated early on. “This was rushed just so fast. I’m not getting it myself only until I can see it works after some time,” he said.
Earlier this week, Moderna, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration pulled a batch of 330,000 doses of the pharmaceutical company’s coronavirus vaccine for review after a “higher-than-usual number of adverse effects”, including severe allergic reactions, were reported among almost a dozen individuals.
The state gave vaccine providers the green light to resume vaccinations using the batch on Thursday, saying a review had shown the vaccines to be “safe and effective.”
As of Saturday, over 41.4 million vaccine doses have been distributed across the US, and 20.5 million administered, with California among the national leaders by volume, with 5 million doses distributed and 2 million administered. The West Coast state has been among the worst hit by the pandemic, with Johns Hopkins University statistics indicating a daily average of 423 deaths over the past month, with over 36,000 COVID-19 related deaths reported in total since the pandemic began last year.
- Source : Ilya Tsukanov
