No, 30 people vaccinated on the same day in New Zealand did not die due to the COVID-19 vaccine

Context

A video on Instagram claims that “New Zealand is a Crime Scene: In one clinic, in one day 30 people were injected and all 30 have died.” The injection in the claim refers to the COVID-19 vaccine, and the video states that all 30 people vaccinated died in the same timeframe.  

The speaker in the video states the claim stems from a video by journalist Liz Gunn, a former TV presenter, anti-vaxxer, and leader of the conspiratorial New Zealand Loyal political party. Another video featuring Gunn makes these same claims, and she further asserts that “ten of thousands of deaths” are linked to the vaccines. She claims that 30 people were jabbed on the same day at the same clinic, and these people are now all dead, having died in close temporal proximity.

However, no evidence could be found to suggest that 30 people vaccinated at the same clinic on the same day died due to the COVID-19 vaccine. 

In fact

According to an article by New Zealand news outlet Stuff, Gunn is a prominent figure in the New Zealand conspiracy community and has previously likened COVID-19 mandates to r*pe. The New Zealand Loyal Party’s website refers to New Zealand’s COVID-19 Pandemic response as a “mini-holocaust,” that vaccines are “kill shots” and claims that the population is being “calculatedly poisoned.” Gunn gives no details as to the supposed clinic, nor could Logically Facts find any news reports of such a clinic with multiple vaccine deaths existing. 

In New Zealand, adverse reactions to medicine and vaccines are investigated by the Centre for Adverse Reaction Monitoring (CARM) and reviewed by the COVID-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board. These bodies exist to analyze data and to verify if adverse reactions are related to vaccinations or medicines. According to New Zealand’s Ministry of Health, following reviews by these bodies, four deaths have been possibly linked to the COVID-19 vaccine. The Health Ministry’s report was published on December 14, 2022, and there have been no further official reports linking more deaths to the COVID-19 vaccines since this publication.

Chris James, the Group Manager for MedSafe told Logically Facts that; "The New Zealand medicines regulator is Medsafe and is responsible for collecting spontaneous reports of suspected adverse reactions to medicines including vaccines. A number of deaths post-vaccination have been reported, however the majority of these deaths at the time of the last safety report were unlikely to be linked to the vaccine."

He further stated, "There is no evidence to support the claim - no reported deaths to Medsafe match the claim as reported." 

According to the latest safety monitoring report by MedSafe, up to and including November 30, 2022, there has been a total of 184 deaths reported to CARM following the administration of COVID-19 vaccines. Following assessments by CARM and MedSafe, 163 of these deaths were unlikely related to the vaccine. 15 could not be assessed, and two are still under investigation. This report also shows that only four deaths have been linked to the vaccine. New Zealand primarily uses the Pfizer (Cominarty) vaccine, which this data is based on. The report also states that there have been no deaths reported for the Vaxzevria or Nuvaxovid vaccines.

Christian Marchello, Te Whatu Ora Manager Vaccine Safety Surveillance and Research, at the National Public Health Service, told Logically Facts that; "There is no evidence that vaccination is responsible for excess mortality in New Zealand. By chance and separate to a prior COVID-19 vaccination event, some people will experience new illnesses or die from a pre-existing condition shortly after vaccination, especially if they are elderly."

According to Health New Zealand’s COVID-19 vaccine data, 90 percent of the New Zealand population over 12 years of age have had a primary course of vaccination, and 72.8 percent of eligible 18+ year-olds have received their first booster. New Zealand has a population of 5.1 million people, so the 184 reported deaths following COVID-19 vaccine administration is noticeably low and does not support the assertion that the COVID-19 vaccine is responsible for a high death rate.

Manchello also told Logically Facts that; "The COVID-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board (CV-ISMB) has compared natural death rates to observed death rates following vaccination. In the monitoring period for the Pfizer/ BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (19 February 2021 to 30 September 2022), the observed number of deaths was less than the expected number of natural deaths."

The claims that COVID-19 vaccines are responsible for widespread deaths and are part of a depopulation agenda have been widely and substantially debunked. Logically Facts has fact-checked a variety of similar claims about deaths in the U.K. and found them to be false. COVID-19 vaccines are widely considered safe and effective.

The verdict

There is no evidence that 30 people who were vaccinated at the same clinic died in the same time frame due to the vaccine. There is also no evidence that tens of thousands of people in New Zealand have died due to the vaccine. These claims are known to be spread by a prominent New Zealand anti-vaxxer. Therefore, these claims have been marked false.

This fact-check was edited on November 21, 2023 to add comment from the New Zealand National Public Health Service and MedSafe.