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On December 17, 2020, first responders in the state of Tennessee began getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
In the following days, the Tennessee Department of Health shared testimonials from doctors, nurses, firefighters and other frontline workers about their experiences with the vaccine.
While this collection of testimonials from real Tennessee medical professionals was overwhelmingly positive and encouraged citizens to get vaccinated when the time was right, it was an unverified video of a woman claiming to be a nurse who became viral on social media and fueled controversy over COVID. -19 vaccine.
During the Christmas holidays in 2020, a video of a woman claiming to be a nurse in Nashville, Tennessee named Khalilah Mitchell began circulating on social media sites such as 4chan, Twitter and Facebook. This video has also been posted multiple times on YouTube and other video hosting sites such as Bitchute. While we don’t know how many people in total viewed this video, one iteration posted to Twitter has been viewed almost 50,000 times. By comparison, testimonials published by the Tennessee Department of Health typically received between 20 and 50 shares.
In the video, the woman claims to have developed Bell’s palsy, a form of temporary facial palsy, days after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine:
We have not been able to confirm too many details about this viral video. We don’t know where it came from, where it was filmed, or even who it shows. When we contacted the Tennessee Department of Health, a spokesperson told us, “We have no record of anyone with that name in our licensing system for health professionals.”
Seana Davis, disinformation specialist at Euronews, also reported that the Tennessee Department of Health had no record of Khalilah Mitchell as a registered nurse:
It should also be noted that there is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine causes Bell’s palsy.
In early December 2020, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a report on COVID-19 vaccine trials that were conducted in the days leading up to the new drug’s approval. This report found that four people (out of about 22,000) who participated in the vaccine trial had developed Bell’s palsy. But the report also noted that this frequency rate was lower than the expected background rate of Bell’s palsy in the general population. In other words, there is no evidence that this condition was caused by the vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) writes that the United States has a strong safety program to ensure that the COVID-19 vaccine is as safe as possible:
The United States currently has the safest vaccine supply in history. The country’s long-standing vaccine safety system ensures that vaccines are as safe as possible.
Vaccine safety is a critical part of the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As vaccines are developed and become available, public knowledge of their safety, both at start and during prolonged use, is an important part of a successful national immunization effort.
The CDC’s Immunization Safety Office strives to communicate timely and transparent information about vaccine safety to public health officials, healthcare providers, and the public. The office conducts vaccine safety oversight and clinical research to help keep vaccines safe.
Learn more about the various safety measures health officials take to ensure the COVID-19 vaccine is safe here.
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