A Cherry Costales nurse prepares the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at St. John’s Well Child & Family Center on Thursday, January 7, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA.
Irfan Khan / Getty ImagesThe COVID-19 vaccine has been ruled out as a contributing factor to the death of a man who died hours after inoculation in January, the Placer County Sheriff-Coroner Division said Saturday. The 64-year-old man, who worked as a health worker at a Placer County facility, received the vaccine on Jan. 21 and died the same day.
He complained of side effects within 10 minutes of the injection, and the coroner’s office said this led to his decision to inform the public about the study.
Through the investigation, the office learned “that not only had he recently been diagnosed with COVID-19, but he also had underlying health problems and was showing signs of illness at the time the vaccine was administered.”
Clinical research and laboratory results determined that the vaccine was not the cause of death, the coroner’s office said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that individuals who have already had COVID and have fully recovered should still be vaccinated.
“At this point, experts do not know how long a person is protected from getting sick again after recovery from COVID-19. The immunity a person gains from an infection, called natural immunity, varies from person to person,” the CDC said. “Some early evidence suggests that natural immunity will not last.”