A man in Northern California died Thursday hours after receiving a dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to Placer County Public Health and the Sheriff’s Office in Placer County.
The man tested positive for the coronavirus earlier in late December.
“There are several local, state and federal agencies actively investigating this matter; any reports regarding the cause of death are premature, pending the outcome of the investigation,” reads a statement from the sheriff’s office. “We are thinking of the family of the deceased.”
Placer County Public Health and Human Services did not administer the vaccine and could not comment on whether the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine was given.
“We do not have any additional information at this time,” said Dr. Rob Oldham, director of the department, wrote in an email.
Dr Dean Blumberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Davis Children’s Hospital, told KTXL-TV that people should wait until the investigation is completed before killing the vaccine.
“My first tendency is that it is probably not related to the vaccine,” Blumberg told Sacramento television station. “We know that the severe allergic reactions that occur after vaccination, the vast majority of which occur 15-30 minutes after vaccination.”
The health secretary of California, dr. Mark Ghaly, during a press conference on Monday, commented on the incident.
“We are looking at this very closely and are still behind overwhelming evidence that these vaccines are safe,” Ghaly said. “Overwhelmingly, we see that people are receiving both the Pfzier and Moderna vaccines without complications. These are safe vaccines. We are watching how they are successfully administered across the country.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that individuals who have already had COVID and fully recovered still need to be vaccinated.
“At present, experts do not know how long someone is protected from becoming ill again after recovering from COVID-19. The immunity that someone gets as a result of an infection, called natural immunity, varies from person to person,” according to the CDC. “Some early evidence suggests that natural immunity may not last very long.”