Suspected COVID-19 vaccine death in SVG

By Shanieka Smith

Staff Writer

At the start of the Vaccine Mandate lawsuit in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Chief Medical Officer Dr Simone Keizer-Beache told the court that one person may have died after being injected with the COVID-19 vaccine.

As of November 26, 2021, 53,852 doses of the vaccine were administered in SVG; 25 resulted in adverse effects. While the cases were moderate, Dr. Keizer- Beache said one individual experienced severe weakness and soon died after receiving the vaccination.

The doctor said that after several diagnoses, the patient received an MRI in the US and it showed that they possibly had acute hyperactive encephalopathy, which is common with COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 vaccine inflammation.

“The final cause of death on the post-mortem was venous thrombosis and pulmonary thromboembolism. However, to date, no definitive diagnosis has been made of the cause of the progressive weakness that preceded death because of the lack of conclusive evidence and conflicting diagnoses,” Keizer-Beache later added.

The lead counsel for the claimants in the trial, Cara Shillingford–Marsh said it is important for the state to recognise and admit that someone died from the COVID-19 vaccine. Senior Counsel Anthony Astaphan, the lead lawyer for the respondent, however, said taking the vaccine was a personal choice and individuals should face the consequences of this decision.

Shillingford-Marsh added that the individuals were not being monitored after receiving the vaccine. No mention was made by the doctor about any measures taken to monitor the side effects of the number of people that died.

She argued that making the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory would be inhumane and according to Section 5 of the constitution, no individual should be subject to inhumane treatment or punishment. Shilling-Marsh recalled the number of citizens that lost their jobs due to the vaccine mandate in December 2021. She said it is inhumane to force people to take new drugs into their bodies which could have adverse side effects.

“There’s no force; there was no threat of force. There was no suggestion that the Special Services Unit or the regional services unit were going to come and collect everybody, put them in a stadium and inject them one by one. That would be the level of atrocity that would be required to meet the test under Section 5,” Astaphan rebutted.