75-year-old Israeli man dies of heart attack after receiving COVID-19 vaccine

A 75-year-old man from Northern Israel died from a heart attack, two hours after being vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, according to the country's Health Ministry.

According to Chezy Levy, Director-General of the Ministry of Health, the man had pre-existing conditions and suffering from heart attacks in the past, adding that an investigation would be launched into the incident.

Levy mentioned that "We share in the grief of the family", but reiterated in a press conference that initial findings have revealed that there is no tangible link between the man's death and his vaccination.

In early December, when Pfizer presented its safety data to the United States Food and Drug Administration, it found that two trial participants died after receiving the vaccine, with one of the deceased was immunocompromised.

After these details were revealed, Israel's Midaat Association responded to the report explained that when vaccines are administered to at-risk populations, "there may be unfortunate cases. One should not infer from this about the safety of the vaccine, but welcome the transparency required from the pharma companies in the drug approval process".

Furthermore, the association noted that in large trials comprising ten of thousands of people, death can occur without any connection to the trial, and can lead to what are known as spurious correlations.

According to Dr. Uri Lerner, the scientific director for Midaat, "According to the published data, six of the participants in the experiment died, two of whom received the vaccine and four of the control group [...] after an in-depth examination, no connection was found between the experiment and the cause of death".

Any long-term effects of the vaccine are still unknown, and as of Monday, Israel has vaccinated over 380,000 citizens, and aims to inoculate those with chronic illnesses and medical personnel - aiming to vaccinate as many as 150,000 people per day.