Social media reports claimed that more than four hundred people died shortly after receiving the coronavirus vaccine. This claim needs context.
Examples can be seen (here) and (here).
“In the UK, 456 deaths so far have been read immediately after ‘vaccines”. “MHRA received 212 UK reports of suspected side effects of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine in which the patient died shortly after vaccination, 244 reports for the Oxford University / AstraZeneca vaccine.”
One role of the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is to monitor vaccine safety by receiving reports of suspected side effects.
Any health worker or member of the public can report suspected side effects through the yellow card scheme.
As correctly noted in the report, there are more than 400 reports of suspected adverse reactions to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccines in which the patient died shortly after vaccination (here).
For monitoring purposes, these reports document (here) (here) all the suspected adverse reactions that occurred after vaccination.
However, this is not a list of those who died due to the vaccine.
“The nature of the yellow card reporting means that reported events are not always proven side effects,” the MHRA said. “Some events happened anyway, regardless of the vaccination.”
Due to the sheer scope of the vaccination program, it is assumed that some people will naturally experience a new disease after receiving the vaccination.
“It is therefore important that we carefully review these reports to distinguish possible side effects from diseases that would occur regardless of vaccination,” the MHRA said.
Many of those vaccinated so far are elderly or pre-existing medical conditions, which further increases the likelihood that accidental side effects will occur.
According to the MHRA, the number and nature of these side effects are not usually compared to other commonly used vaccines.
The agency investigated the reports, but to date, the vaccine has not been found responsible for the deaths.
VERDICT
Missing context. This number reflects adverse reactions that occurred after vaccination but were not necessarily caused by the vaccine.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to actually check social media posts.