Israeli Designer May Have Been Vaccinated Prior to His Death
The Claim
The fashion designer Alber Elbaz died of coronavirus, despite being fully vaccinated.
News posted on
Emerging story
On April 25, the luxury goods company Richemont announced that the fashion designer Alber Elbaz, who had worked with them since 2019, had died. The statement did not include a cause. Shortly after, fashion journalists and news sources began stating that the designer had died of coronavirus.
Other sources began claiming that Elbaz had died of the South African variant of coronavirus, despite being fully vaccinated. The story spread through social media. Users claimed that the media had been downplaying the fact that he had been vaccinated, with one even speculating that he may have been a “victim” of the vaccine.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation has concluded that it is not possible to state with confidence that Elbaz had received any vaccination against Covid-19 when he died. There is no reason to believe he did not receive one either.
The majority of the sources that have announced Elbaz’s death do not state that the designer was vaccinated at the time of his death. Sources that claim that Elbaz was fully vaccinated link to a single Times of Israel article which states that the designer was fully vaccinated. However, this article claims that Israel’s Channel 12 News (Keshet 12) first reported that Elbaz had been fully vaccinated. The source provides no link to verify this claim.
Our analysis was not able to identify a statement that Elbaz had been fully vaccinated on the Channel 12 News/Keshet 12 website. As we were unable to find the original source for the claim that Elbaz was vaccinated, it is not possible to state with confidence that his vaccinations had occurred. We have also reached out to Richemont for comment.
The original announcements of Elbaz’s death from Richemont or from the journalist Suzy Menkes do not claim that Elbaz was vaccinated.
Additionally, Elbaz’s Instagram page makes no announcement about vaccination in late 2020 or early 2021.
Overall, it appears as if the Times of Israel article may have inadvertently spread an inaccurate claim, as the source that that article uses no longer states that Elbaz was vaccinated.
It could also be possible that Elbaz was one of the
small number of vaccinated people who have died of coronavirus after getting the vaccine. While the vaccines are an effective way of combating the virus .008% of fully vaccinated people have still become infected. 1% of these people have died as a result of their infections. This shows that the odds of dying from coronavirus after receiving a vaccine are incredibly slim but it is still a possibility.
