Social media users share reports claiming one of the first nurses in Alabama to receive the COVID-19 vaccine was found dead. This claim is untrue: Alabama Public Health contacted all hospitals in the state that administered the COVID-19 vaccine and confirmed that no vaccine recipients were dead.
The posts (here, here, here, here) show screenshots of a Facebook chat saying, ‘Omg, they just found my aunt dead! She was one of the nurses who got the covid vaccine at her job today, and they just found her dead. A Facebook message that says, ‘My aunt, the nurse who died hours after receiving the covid vaccine, is from Alabama. “Captions on the posts include:” Everyone should ask for the Alabama nurse who passed away 8-10 hours after the first dose. ” and a nurse in Alabama is about dead. 8-10 hours after receiving her C-19 Vax. ”
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine became available in the United States on December 14, as the death toll from the coronavirus reached 300,000 (here). Initial doses were set aside for physicians, nurses, other frontline medical workers, residents and staff of nursing homes, and some U.S. government officials (here, here).
The Alabama Department of Public Health (APHD) has published (here) a statement explaining that it has contacted all hospitals in the state where the COVID-19 vaccine was administered to confirm that the allegations made in the Facebook reports were made, were false: Facebook reports a death in Alabama at a recipient of the COVID-19 vaccine on December 15th. The reports are untrue and no persons who received COVID-19 vaccine in Alabama were killed.
“The Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) has reached all hospitals in the state that have administered the COVID-19 vaccine and confirmed that there were no deaths among vaccine recipients.”
VERDICT
Untrue. The Alabama Department of Public Health has contacted all hospitals that have administered COVID-19 vaccines in the state and found no reports of vaccine-related deaths.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.