The death of a person in Placer County last week who recently received a COVID-19 vaccine is being investigated by several agencies.
Placer County Public Health Department officials and the sheriff in Placer County said in a statement that the person, who died Thursday, tested positive for the coronavirus at the end of December and received a vaccine is a few hours before he died.
Placer County Public Health did not administer the vaccine and did not make clear in the statement whether the person received the Moderna or Pfizer BioNTech shot.
“All reports of the cause of death are premature, pending the outcome of the investigation,” the sheriff said on his Facebook page. “We are thinking of the deceased’s family.”
Public health officials from Placer County declined to comment on Tuesday.
“We are unable to provide additional information regarding the outcome of the investigation, which includes state and federal partners,” spokesman Chris Gray-Garcia wrote in an email.
The sheriff’s office statement, which was posted on social media on Saturday, elicited nearly 3,000 comments, much to the agency’s chagrin. Others praised officials for reporting the incident.
Sheriff officials defended the message in several comments, saying in one: ‘We are always transparent with the public and share factual information in a timely manner. We cannot control how it is spun / interpreted. ”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has both Pfizer and Modern vaccines for emergency use to an established vaccine safety evaluation procedure. No deaths were associated with any vaccine.
Cases of anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction to the shots that can be life-threatening, were extremely rare, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
During the first three weeks of the introduction of the Moderna vaccine in the USA, there were 2.5 cases of anaphylaxis for every 1 million doses that the Modern vaccine. A similar analysis of the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech found there was 11.1 cases of anaphylaxis for every 1 million doses during the first ten days of application.
According to California Gov. Mark Ghaly, secretary of health and human services, the details of the Placer County case are “complicated” and “worth investigating further.”
In a briefing on Monday, he said it was important to publicly share the lessons learned from the Placer County case and reactions in vaccine recipients elsewhere in the country. Ghaly reiterated the safety of both vaccines used in the US, which was approved by the Western States Scientific Safety Committee.
‘These are safe vaccines [and] we are looking at how they are being successfully applied across the state, across the country, around the world, ”Ghaly said. “We are looking into it closely and are still behind the overwhelming data and evidence that these vaccines are safe.”