A 24-year-old’s sudden death devastated his family — and caught the attention of the movement of vaccine opponents.
Before he received his second shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, there was little reason to think that George Watts Jr. was about to die.
He was 24 and showed no obvious health problems. His family said he lived cautiously. He spent most of his time playing video games in his room at his parents’ house in Elmira, a city in south-central New York.
That is where he was when he collapsed on Oct. 27, 2021.
George Jr.’s mother, Kathy, called 911 and started C.P.R. Paramedics rushed him to the emergency room, where doctors pronounced him dead.
What happened?
To the family, the answer was instantly obvious. “I blame that damn Covid vaccine,” Ms. Watts said in the hospital’s waiting room after learning her son had died, according to her husband, George Watts Sr.
The medical examiner at a New York hospital reached a similar conclusion, adding more specifics: The cause of death, he wrote, was “Covid-19 vaccine-related myocarditis,” an uncommon and often mild condition involving inflammation of the heart. It can develop when the body battles viruses, responds to certain vaccines, or nearly a dozen other reasons. Multiple studies say the condition can develop in some people, particularly young men, who receive a Covid-19 vaccine.