68-Year-Old Woman Dies After Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine: Family

A healthcare worker prepares a COVID-19 vaccine at Lestonnac Health Clinic in Orange, Calif., on March 9, 2021. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

A 68-year-old woman from Kansas died a day after having a reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine, according to family members.

In a Becker Dyer-Stanton Funeral Home obituary, family members wrote that Jeanie M. Evans of Effingham, a mother-of-five, died unexpectedly on Wednesday at the Stormont-Vail Hospital “from a reaction to the Covid vaccine.”

According to EMS dispatch records, a 68-year-old woman had an allergic reaction at a COVID-19 vaccine clinic site, the Keystone Learning Services center in Ozawkie, at around 4 p.m. on Tuesday, KMBC reported.

The woman had difficulty breathing and speaking, and was injected with an EpiPen, dispatch records indicate. EMS had also asked about the availability of air transport to the Stormont-Vail Hospital.

Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) spokesperson Kristi Zears told The Wichita Eagle that Evans had an allergic reaction—anaphylaxis—during a waiting period after receiving the shot. She was transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead a day later.

It is not clear whether Evans had underlying health conditions. KDHE did not indicate which COVID-19 vaccine was administered. Three COVID-19 vaccines have been authorized for emergency use in the United States so far: Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

Zears noted that Evans’s death will be fully investigated in accordance with standard protocol.

“Until the investigation is complete, it is premature to assign a specific cause of death,” she added.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the department for further clarification on the matter.

Soumya Swaminathan, a clinical scientist with the World Health Organization (WHO) said this month that there is no evidence to suggest a link between any COVID-19 vaccine and deaths.

“There is no documented death that’s been linked to a COVID vaccine,” Swaminathan told reporters on March 15.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told The Epoch Times in an email that as of March 8, more than 92 million doses of mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 had been administered, with 1,637 deaths occurring following the injections in the United States.

The Epoch Times hasn’t been able independently to confirm the CDC’s numbers. According to data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System’s (VAERS) website, 1,136 deaths had occurred nationwide as of Feb. 26.

Celia Farber contributed to this report.