Vaccine discarded as cause of death in NorCal man who had COVID-19, officials say
PLACER COUNTY, California – Authorities determined that the coronavirus vaccine was not a factor that contributed to the death of a man in northern California earlier this month, officials said on Saturday.
“The clinical examination and laboratory results determined that the COVID-19 vaccine was discarded as a contributing factor in the individual’s death,” wrote the Placer County Sheriff’s Office in a Facebook post.
Last week, the sheriff’s department reported that a man died hours after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, although he did not specify which vaccine the person received.
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Authorities say the 64-year-old man worked as a health professional at a facility in Placer County. He started complaining about side effects ten minutes after the vaccination, which led to the sheriff’s department’s decision to inform the public about the investigation.
The department said on Saturday that, throughout their investigation, they learned that not only was he recently diagnosed with COVID-19, but he also had underlying health problems and had symptoms of the disease at the time the vaccine was administered.
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“We would also like to take this moment to sincerely apologize for some of the Facebook comments made by our agency after we informed the community about this incident,” wrote the sheriff’s department on Facebook. “We realized how they were taken by the public, and it shouldn’t have happened.”
An investigation is still ongoing in Southern California after an Orange County health professional died four days after receiving his second dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine. The coroner said Tim Zook’s cause of death is inconclusive for the time being, and more toxicology tests will take months. Zook, 60, worked as an X-ray technologist at the South Coast Global Medical Center in Santa Ana.
RELATED: The OC health professional dies after receiving the second COVID-19 vaccine; official cause of death pending