Investigation underway after California man dies hours after getting COVID-19 vaccine

DAVIS, Calif. (KTXL) -- The Placer County Sheriff’s Office and Public Health reported Saturday that they are investigating the death of a man who received a COVID-19 vaccine. 

According to officials, the person had tested positive for COVID-19 in late December and received the vaccine Thursday. The sheriff’s office says the man was not administered his vaccine by Placer County Public Health.

It’s unknown where he got his vaccine or which vaccine he received, as officials have yet to say. 

A cause of death has not been reported yet and agencies are still investigating, but they reported he died hours later after receiving the vaccine. 

The announcement was made in a Facebook post by the sheriff’s office. 

“Many people are going to make the connection with the vaccine because of the timing,” said Dr. Dean Blumberg. 

Blumberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Davis Children’s hospital, warns people shouldn’t be too quick to place blame. 

“My first inclination is that it's probably not related to the vaccine,” Blumberg told FOX40. “We know that the severe allergic reactions that occur following immunization, the vast majority of those occur 15-30 minutes following immunization.” 

Blumberg says that if it happened several hours later it is “probably not the severe allergic reaction, anaphylaxis, that we worry about.”

A recommendation from Dr. Anthony Fauci also states that people should not get vaccinated within 90 days of being sick with the virus. 

Blumberg says people who had COVID-19 participated in the vaccine trials and did not show any increased risk. 

“That’s why we do these large studies to look for any of those kinds of signals and in the studies, we didn't see any signal that showed that people who are vaccinated were more likely to die,” Blumberg said. “I think the odds are that it was more likely due to chance.”

Blumberg says there are still many questions that need to be answered regarding the incident.

Multiple agencies are actively investigating the case, including the California Department of Public Health.

Our thoughts are with the family of the deceased. We take these instances seriously which is why we are working with our government partners to investigate the cause. We are working collaboratively and will continue to use data and science to determine how to proceed.

California Department of Public Health