First Person Vaccinated Against COVID-19 Didn't Die
The Claim
90-year-old Irish woman dies after taking the first Pfizer/BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine.
News posted on
Emerging story
Users online claimed that Margaret Keenan, the first person that received the Pfizer/BioNTech in the world died after she received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Other users claimed that she will die soon after taking the vaccine.
Misbar’s Analysis
Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old from Northern Ireland, in the United Kingdom, became the first person in the world to receive the COVID-19 vaccine outside of trials.
Following the vaccination, the NHS posted a video on Twitter showing Keenan leaving the hospital ward in a wheelchair, as medical staff cheered her on, two hours later in good condition.
This is the moment that 90-year-old grandmother Margaret Keenan returned to the ward at her local hospital in Coventry, after she became the first person in the world to receive the clinically-approved #COVIDVaccine this morning 👏🏾👏🏼👏🏽 pic.twitter.com/80yRjJLRhM
— NHS Midlands (@NHSMidlands) December 8, 2020
There have since been no reports from the UK government, the NHS, the University Hospital, or any International news media outlets of any adverse health effects to or death of the senior patient. She has been self-isolating for most of this year and, following the procedure, she plans to return to her home in Coventry. Misbar found that the claim that Margaret Keenan has died following the first Pfizer Covid-19 injection to be false. Furthermore, the claims appear to be posted by users that carry ‘anti-vax’ sentiments which may indicate the reason for posting the falsified information online in undermining vaccination efforts.
However, the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine has been clinically approved by the MHRA, meaning that it has shown to be effective in clinical trials with a 94% effectiveness rate for those aged 65 and above. According to a statement by Pfizer, more than 43,000 participants participated in the clinical trials without any serious safety concerns observed, let alone being a cause of death.
The NHS Covid-19 vaccination program will firstly inoculate patients aged 80 and above who are already attending hospital as an outpatient, along with some health workers and care staff, with about 70 hospital hubs across the UK being set up. There are currently 800,000 doses of the vaccine available, with up to four million due by the end of the month.
