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Joshua Garza had a chance to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in January but he passed it up, thinking he didn't really need it. Now, the 43-year-old Texan is hoping to inspire others to get the shot after he became so ill following his COVID-19 diagnosis that he needed a rare double lung transplant to survive. "COVID ended up attacking my lungs," Garza, of Sugarland, told ABC News. After testing positive for COVID-19 in late January, Garza's health deteriorated rapidly. On Feb. 2, when he ended up falling while trying to walk, his wife called for an ambulance to take him...

Mother directed her 17-year-old to get the jab. Now the son has blood clots in the brain.

PORTLAND (WGME) -- Eight Mainers have died with COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated, according to the Maine CDC. While it's a rare occurrence, it can leave families in shock and heartbroken. Eager and ready for normalcy, Arthur Mitchell got his second dose of the Moderna vaccine on March 8. “Counted out his two weeks to be fully vaccinated, was very excited about that,” daughter Margaret Staggs said. Staggs says once the family was fully vaccinated, they finally relaxed after a year of restrictions. “We probably all took a deep breath and let our guard down a little bit,” Staggs said....

The Oracle engineer who created the APEX System and then worked with the CDC to develop a COVID tracking system died late last month from coronavirus. Joel Kallman announced he took the vaccine back in March.

Yesterday I visited a small manufacturing business in my area (work-related), noting that there was a sign on the door advising employees "fully-vaccinated employees may be mask-free with proof of vaccination;" I made a mental note, as this was only the 2nd business I'd seen with such a notice. I went about my business and engaged in chit-chat with the gal in the office while I was working. I was focused on the problem and hardly being attentive to the conversation while she was griping about the lack of supervisors, apologizing for not wearing her mask. I told her I...

Federal authorities have received over 800 reports of heart inflammation in people who received a COVID-19 vaccine, a health official said Thursday. The reports of myocarditis or pericarditis were submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a passive reporting system run jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration, through May 31. The bulk of the reports described heart inflammation appearing after the second of two doses of either the Pfizer of Moderna vaccines, both of which utilize messenger RNA technology. Authorities stress that anybody can submit reports through the reporting...

The Centers for Disease Control has announced Thursday that it has scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss increasing reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation) in individuals who had recently received the COVID vaccine, specifically the mRNA Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines. The virtual meeting is scheduled for June 18 and will last from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has outlined an agenda for the emergency meeting, which lists several data points uncovered during the investigation previously reported on by National File. The CDC ACIP notes that 488 total...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will convene an "emergency meeting" of its advisers on June 18th to discuss rare but higher-than-expected reports of heart inflammation following doses of the mRNA-based Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

The number of cases of a heart inflammation condition in 16-to-24-year-olds was higher than expected after they received their second dose of Pfizer or Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, citing preliminary data from its vaccine safety monitor system. There have been 275 reported cases of myocarditis or pericarditis, which are inflammation conditions involving the heart, in people ages 16 to 24 as of May 31, according to a CDC presentation that was prepared for a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel meeting Thursday.

PORTLAND (WGME) -- Eight Mainers have died with COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated, according to the Maine CDC. While it's a rare occurrence, it can leave families in shock and heartbroken. Eager and ready for normalcy, Arthur Mitchell got his second dose of the Moderna vaccine on March 8. “Counted out his two weeks to be fully vaccinated, was very excited about that,” daughter Margaret Staggs said. Staggs says once the family was fully vaccinated, they finally relaxed after a year of restrictions. “We probably all took a deep breath and let our guard down a little bit,” Staggs said....

Most people who are reluctant to be vaccinated against Covid are worried about side-effects and whether the vaccines have been adequately tested, a survey in 15 countries has shown. Other reasons cited in the survey of 68,000 people, led by Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation in collaboration with YouGov, were the uncertainty that people would not get the vaccine they preferred and worries about efficacy. The survey was carried out in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Excluding eligibility, the top reasons...

Israel’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday it had found the small number of heart inflammation cases observed mainly in young men who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in Israel were likely linked to their vaccination. Pfizer has said it has not observed a higher rate of the condition, known as myocarditis, than would normally be expected in the general population. In Israel, 275 cases of myocarditis were reported between December 2020 and May 2021 among more than 5 million vaccinated people, the ministry said in disclosing the findings of a study it commissioned to examine the matter. Most patients who experienced...

SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) -- The Orange County Coroner's office is investigating the death of a woman who died just days after she received her second dose of the Moderna vaccine. The family says the grandmother was healthy before she got her shot, and that her sudden death came as a shock. A conversation with staff at the Orange County Coroner's office about Griselda Flores' death, raised red flags for her son Richard Cardenas and the family. "They made it seem like this was not the first call that they had," Cardenas said. Assistant Chief Deputy Coroner Brad Olsen says...

A coroner will consider if the cause of BBC presenter Lisa Shaw's death might have been complicated by her having had the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. Her family said the 44-year-old was treated for blood clots days after her first jab. She died on Friday. An interim fact-of-death certificate lists the vaccine as one of the possible factors being considered. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said vaccine benefits exceed risks for most people. The BBC has seen the interim fact-of-death certificate issued by Newcastle's senior coroner Karen Dilks.

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT May 26, 2021, 6:38PM Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase said Wednesday the first pandemic-related death of a fully vaccinated local resident, which was reported Tuesday, is “no cause for concern” about the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines. Mase said the man, who died in a local hospital last Thursday, was more than 95 years old and had multiple health issues that may have contributed to his death. “He had multiple co-morbid conditions, underlying conditions, COVID was a contributing factor, one of many things involved in this person’s demise,” Mase said.

Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped investigating breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people unless they become so sick that they are hospitalized or die. The change means the agency will continue to investigate cases like the death of a vaccinated resident of a nursing home in Kentucky but not the infections of more than 20 other vaccinated residents and employees in the same home who did not require hospitalization. But even relatively mild cases of Covid-19 can lead to persistent long-term health problems, and it will be difficult to know the full scope without tracking mild...

A Sonoma County man who was fully vaccinated against the coronavirus died of complications from COVID-19 last week, marking the first county resident who was inoculated to die from the disease, county officials said. The county reported the death, the first since April, late Monday, bringing the local coronavirus death toll to 315.