Two Elderly Died After Receiving The COVID-19 Vaccine

Vaccine illustration. (Sam Moqadam / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Two elderly (seniors) died on Wednesday, March 3, after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine injection. Both of them were middle-aged men.

The death of a recipient of the COVID-19 vaccine has prompted health authorities to plan an investigation regarding whether or not there is a connection between the deaths of the two of them and the vaccine given.

The two elderly men are residents of a nursing home in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, to be precise in Goyang and Pyeongtaek. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said the two died after receiving the first injection of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The man at the Goyang nursing home, in his 50s, showed signs of a heart attack and had difficulty breathing 11 hours after being vaccinated on Tuesday morning. He received first aid on site but died the next day of heart failure. He has several congenital diseases, heart problems, diabetes, and stroke.

Meanwhile, a man in Pyongtaek, 63 years old, is known to have cerebrovascular disease. He died four days after receiving his first shot of the vaccine on Saturday afternoon last week. He started showing adverse reactions including high fever and body aches the next day.

He was prescribed painkillers and fever relievers but was transferred to the public hospital Tuesday afternoon because her condition had worsened. The man died on Wednesday morning at around 10 a.m., showing additional symptoms of sepsis and pneumonia.

"As the epidemiological investigations are currently underway, we will thoroughly review their medical records to see the link between deaths and vaccinations", said KDCA Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong.

He said hundreds of deaths after vaccination had been reported in other countries but no correlation between vaccines and deaths was found.

As of Tuesday, KDCA noted that 87.428 residents of Gingseng Country had received the COVID-19 vaccine. Among them, 85.904 received the first injection of the two-dose AstraZeneca vaccine. Meanwhile, 1.524 received their first injection of the Pfizer vaccine.

The KDCA notes that 207 abnormal reactions have been reported, mostly mild, such as headache, fever, and vomiting. Of these numbers, 206 of them were reported after the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine. And, three of them were anaphylactic shock reactions.

Of the 207 severe reactions reported involving two residents of a nursing home in Gyeonggi Province, also with pre-existing congenital conditions.

A man in his 50s at a nursing home in Uijeongbu shows symptoms of dysphasia (slurred speech), headache, and lethargy 20 minutes after being vaccinated for COVID-19. He has underlying conditions for high blood pressure and diabetes.

Another man, in his 60s with a history of cerebrovascular disease and who was admitted to a nursing home in Pyeongtaek, reported fever, low blood pressure, and muscle aches the day after inoculation. The two of them were transferred to a local hospital, and are currently stable.