Quebec woman dies from blood clot after receiving AstraZeneca vaccine; experts stress rarity

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MONTREAL -- A 54-year-old woman has died in the province after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Quebec's public health director Horacio Arruda confirmed Tuesday.

“We just had our first patient who has died of a thrombosis, cerebral thrombosis, following vaccination from AstraZeneca," said Arruda in a news conference. "This is an event that is rare. We knew that it might happen. We have a risk of default one in every 100,000 doses today."

Arruda said it was a risk the province knew it was taking, and that the benefits outweigh the risks.

"It puts a face on a statistic and for us, statistics are always people, and there's no way of knowing who the person is who is going to react that way," he added. "People don't get vaccinated to die. It's rare, and we can't predict it. But for the population at large, vaccination remains beneficial."

The woman was identified by her family as Francine Boyer. Her husband, Alain Serres, confirmed her death in a news release Tuesday evening.

According to the release, Serres and Boyer received their first dose of the vaccine on April 9. Over the next few days, Boyer experienced “great fatigue along with headaches,” but Serres had no side effects.