Claims that 53 people died in Gibraltar in the first ten days after Covid-19 vaccinations started there have gone viral on Facebook. The implication in the article seems to be that these deaths were caused by the vaccine.
Linking these deaths to the vaccine is extremely misleading as there is no evidence of this. The government of Gibraltar has confirmed that as of 27 January, 11,073 people have received their first dose of the vaccine, and of those, six have since died.
Gibraltar started vaccinating on 10 January, and on that day reported that there had been a total of 16 Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Ten days later, the territory recorded a total of 53 Covid-19 deaths to date, which seems to be the source for the claim.
As of 28 January, there have been 70 Covid-19 deaths.
Putting aside the fact that 12 of these deaths had occurred by 9 January before vaccinations started, there is no evidence connecting any of these Covid-19 deaths to the vaccine.
The government has said: “Of the over 11,000 who have been vaccinated, 6 persons have since died for reasons unrelated to the vaccination and there is no evidence to link these to the vaccination in any way.”
“These 6 persons appear to have contracted COVID-19 before they were vaccinated but, despite testing for COVID-19 before vaccination, the infection had not been detected in them at the time they were vaccinated, but in the days immediately after.”
All six were aged between 70 and 100, and all but one were care home residents.
Gibraltar has a population of around 32,000.