For Michael Barnes, the psychological effects of coping with the damage his body suffered from a rare severe reaction to the Covid vaccine are as bad as the physical injuries.
“I used to be very outgoing, but now I’m at the opposite end of the spectrum,” the 35-year-old music tech engineer in Banbury, Oxfordshire, tells i. “I was very well spoken and had a good vocabulary, but now I struggle to get the words out. I don’t go out much any more.”
Michael is one of at least 445 people in the UK known to have suffered a severe and damaging reaction to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The vaccine is credited with protecting tens of millions of people from the potentially devastating effects of Covid, which had contributed to more than 220,000 deaths in the UK and more than 6.8 million worldwide.
And the NHS advice remains that it is much better to have the vaccine than not, because the risks of a severe reaction are much smaller than the chances of death or hospitalisation from Covid.
But for hundreds of people, their reaction to the AstraZeneca vaccine and others was severe. Blood clots brought on a mix of strokes, heart attacks and paralysis, and some of those who lived through it are unlikely to fully recover.
AstraZeneca was asked to comment on the legal action but has said it is unable to say anything at this stage. However, a spokesman did say: “Patient safety is our highest priority and regulatory authorities have clear and stringent standards to ensure the safe use of all medicines, including vaccines. Our sympathy goes out to anyone who has reported health problems.”
Michael is one of 73 people who joined a group action lawsuit against AstraZeneca citing its Covid vaccine as the cause of his injuries. He suffered brain damage and his thinking process is still impaired. His mobility and eyesight are affected. He has severe anxiety; lights and noise affect him. He is also at risk of further blood clots.
“I got the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine in March 2021, earlier than people in my age group, because I have bi-polar [disorder],” he says.
“I was a little bit hesitant to get the vaccine to be honest, as I was pretty low risk given my age, but felt there was an obligation to get it for the benefit of the wider population. I was in good health and would go to the gym, do weights and the rowing machine.
“I felt a bit iffy the day I had the jab, which they said was to be expected. After a couple of days I started to feel better, but after about five days or so I started getting vertigo. Then I started feeling sick all the time.”
Doctors could not tell what was causing the problem and sent him home from hospital, but a few days later Michael suffered a stroke and was put into an induced coma. The vaccine had caused a clot in his brain and led to brain haemorrhages, meaning he needed a decompression hemi-craniotomy.
“I can’t remember the week before that at all. I was in the induced coma for more than three weeks. The doctors had to operate and remove part of my skull because of the pressure on my brain. Waking up from that was very surreal. It took me quite a while to realise where I was and what was going on.
“I couldn’t walk at all by this point, which was quite depressing. I just didn’t have any of my faculties at all. It was about a month afterwards that I realised the extent of the paralysis.”
After moving out of intensive care, Michael spent two months recovering at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxfordshire, then a rehab centre for another two months, where he had to learn to walk again.
“The hospital staff used to talk about what the causes were quite a lot, as I was such an interesting and novel case, I suppose. It was several weeks before I was able to go home. I was trying to get my head around the concept of ‘getting better’, but in hindsight, I gained so much weight, which is very unlike me, [I was] really depressed with everything that had gone on. I’d been ignoring that for quite some time.”
The NHS Business Services Authority, as administrator of the UK statutory vaccine injury scheme, accepted his application for compensation and confirmed he has severe disablement caused by the vaccine.
He says: “My mobility is still severely restricted. I can’t really do anything at all with my right hand. I can’t write particularly well. My peripheral vision is really bad. My ability to see things on a screen is bad; I can’t read very well. Walking is a struggle. I can’t really go anywhere on my own. My balance is poor. I struggle with conversations, following what people are saying, talking. It’s a real struggle.
“I live with my girlfriend, and she has been a fantastic support. A real warrior throughout all of this. She does all the cooking, the cleaning. I just can’t do much at all. I can’t even hold a pot to stir. We had to move to another flat that was better for me to live in as I need to be on the ground floor. I can’t work at the moment, obviously, so that has put extra financial pressure on us.
“The rehab has definitely slowed down in recent months, partly because I’m improving but also partly because there just aren’t enough sessions for me anymore. I’ve had to adjust my gait in such a way so that my hips don’t get progressively worse due to my posture and how I now walk.”
Michael’s legal team said he is quite representative of hundreds of others in the UK who have suffered grievous injury and now have severe disablement as a result of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, including 81 deaths.
“I’m trying to make a conscious effort not to think about everything that has happened quite so much,” he says. “Whenever I’ve thought about it, it has really impeded my recovery. My girlfriend has very strong views and thoughts about it all, as you can imagine, given the impact the vaccine has had on my life. There’s a definite sense of wanting to get justice and accountability.
“I genuinely do not know what I want to get out of all this. It’s unlikely that anything is going to get better. it’s probably just going to get slowly worse.”
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