49 Percent of Americans Say It’s ‘Likely’ COVID Vaccines Caused ‘Significant Number’ of Mysterious Deaths

A nurse administers a COVID-19 vaccine booster to a person at a hospital in Hines, Ill., on April 1, 2022. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A new poll shows that nearly half of Americans believe that the COVID-19 vaccines probably caused a “significant number of unexplained deaths,” while over a quarter said they personally know someone whose death may have been caused by vaccination side effects.

While previous polling showed that a majority of Americans think that COVID-19 vaccines are effective, they also have concerns about the side effects of the jab.

The latest Rasmussen Reports survey, released on Jan. 2 and based on a representative sample of 1,000 American adults, sought to gauge public opinion on the perceived safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

Pollsters asked people a series of questions, including whether they got the COVID-19 shot and how likely is it that the jab’s side effects “have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths.”

Forty-nine percent of the respondents said they think it’s “likely” that the COVID-19 vaccine’s side effects are responsible for a significant number of deaths that remain unexplained.

A large majority (71 percent) said they themselves have been vaccinated against COVID-19, with 38 percent of those believing that the vaccine side effects are at least somewhat likely responsible for unexplained deaths.

Among the 26 percent who said they haven’t been jabbed, 77 percent said it’s at least somewhat likely that the vaccination’s side effects caused significant numbers of mysterious deaths, the survey found.

Another question was whether people think there are “legitimate reasons” to be worried about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, or whether people who are concerned about vaccine safety “are spreading conspiracy theories.”

Forty-eight percent of respondents said they think there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about COVID-19 vaccine safety, 37 percent think people who are worried about this issue are pushing conspiracy theories, and 15 percent aren’t sure.

Waning Vaccine Effectiveness

It comes as a number of studies show that vaccine effectiveness against infection declines and then turns negative as soon as within several weeks, although most of the studies show effectiveness against severe outcomes like hospitalization remains positive but wanes over time.

This is not the case with one recent study, however, which found that effectiveness against severe outcomes like hospitalization and death turned negative.

Negative effectiveness in such studies means that a vaccinated person is more likely to experience a given condition under examination—such as infection or hospitalization—than an unvaccinated person.

The effectiveness of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines turned negative against both infection and severe COVID-19 months after administration, according to the study, which was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Pfizer and AstraZeneca didn’t respond to earlier requests for comment.

Researchers in that study theorized that the reason for negative effectiveness is that people who were vaccinated believed they were protected and so took more risks in their behavior.

“We believe that the most likely explanation … is that vaccination caused recipients to believe they were protected, leading them to change their behaviour in ways that increase their chance of contracting the infection,” wrote Steven Kerr, a senior research fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute, and the other researchers involved in the study.

“These changes in behaviours should initially have been outweighed by the protection offered by the immune response stimulated by the vaccine, but as time progressed the protection is likely to have diminished such that the impact of behavioural changes may have become dominant,” the wrote.

Meanwhile, researchers with Moderna said in a recent paper that vaccine effectiveness against infection turned negative after several months against BA.2.12.1, BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5, which are all subvariants of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

Another paper, which analyzed vaccine effectiveness against infection among children aged 5 to 11, estimated that Pfizer’s vaccine turned negative after 18 or 20 weeks, depending on whether the children had also been infected with COVID-19.

Researchers in Qatar, examining the effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, estimated in June that their effectiveness turned negative over time.

And another paper, published in May by U.S. scientists, determined that the effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine turned negative for 12- to 15-year-olds after five months.

Also, a growing number of doctors and researchers have argued that younger people should not receive COVID-19 vaccines due to reports of heart inflammation associated with the shots.

A study carried out in Israel found there was a 25 percent rise in heart attack emergency calls among Israeli men aged 16 to 25 following the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.

“The main question that we need to ask ourselves is, do we have enough evidence from this study and many other studies, to say halt,” Retsef Levi, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The Epoch Times in late November, referring to a recent Israeli paper.

“We’re going to stop these vaccines, for young individuals, but maybe overall, and we’re going to take the time to really look very, very carefully and scrutinize every piece of data and bring together every possible piece of data to understand what is the answer,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court announced recently that it has approved a request by Gov. Ron DeSantis to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate any wrongdoing related to COVID-19 vaccines.

DeSantis, a Republican, is seeking to investigate Pfizer and Moderna, as well as other medical associations or organizations involved in the provision of the COVID-19 vaccines in Florida.

He’s looking to probe whether any deceitful information was disseminated about whether COVID-19 vaccines prevented infection, symptoms, and transmission.

Zachary Stieber and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.