July 10, 2021- 10:03 p.m.
A 45-year-old Baltimore woman appears to have passed away from complications after taking the second dose of an employer-mandated COVID-19 vaccine, according to reports.
Australian National Review (ANR) says an anonymous tipster provided their publication with photos that documented a family crisis playing out on Facebook when Robin Spring Saunders fell ill and passed away after taking both doses of a vaccine mandated by her new employer, John Hopkins Hospital.
The source told ANR “My co-worker shared with me that her childhood friend by the name of Robin, died after receiving the 2nd shot of the vaccine.”
According to Saunders’s public-facing Facebook posts, she works at Lowe’s Home Improvement and has not updated her timeline since May 3. However, photos provided of the woman’s Facebook feeds show on June 21 she posted, “I never thought I’d get a Covid shot but I got my first one today. Unfortunately my job requires it.”
Photos of Facebook posts provided show one woman posting “my husband’s family needs prayer warriors” because Saunders was “having a severe reaction to the 2nd covid shot and is in ICU with brain swelling and heart issues.”
Saunders’s father also appears to have posted, “My daughter needs prayer. In icu not breathing on ventilator. [sic] robin had a reaction from the covi shot [sic] She johns Hopkins told her she had to have the shot to start her new job [sic].”
Another woman was photographed as posting “We lost a special girl from the second Covid shot. Pray for her family. RIP Robin Spring Saunders.”
In the obituaries section of Connelly Funeral Home of Essex in Baltimore, Robin “Pebbles” Spring (Saunders) Coleman’s funeral was listed for July 5. The obituary reads, “Robin continued her schooling to work with Autistic children at Johns Hopkins Hospital and was hired to continue to do so.”
Screenshots in the ANR article show the funeral as being held on July 2. However, Saunders’s daughter, Autumn, posted on her Facebook confirmation that her mother had passed away on June 27, followed by additional June 29 and July 1 posts that the funeral had been moved to Monday the 5th because the deceased’s body was being processed for organ donation.
In a June 9 Hub Staff Report posted on the John Hopkins University website, the institute confirms “All university faculty and staff will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Aug. 1 in order to promote public health on university campuses and support university operations this fall. Exceptions for medical and religious reasons will be granted. All on-campus undergraduate and graduate students are also required to be vaccinated.”
The post makes it clear the regulation extends to JHU medical facilities, “The policy applies to all faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, and undergraduate and graduate students who will be working or studying at a U.S.–based university campus or work site. That includes members of nonclinical departments in the School of Medicine; clinical departments will follow Johns Hopkins Health System COVID-19 vaccine policies.”
The mandate also extends to “members of collective bargaining units; contractors providing services to the university community and whose primary work location is on university properties located in Maryland or Washington, D.C., regardless of employer; and those who are doing business on behalf of the university, including individuals engaged in work-related travel.”
In April, a nurse at Houston Methodist Hospital, Michele Fuentes, was terminated after declining to take a faculty-mandated vaccine. She told Fox the environment at her workplace had transformed into one where staff were “constantly being pressured and pressured” to get the injection.
Fuentes said she was offered to apply for a religious exemption by a manager. However, she did not because she is not religious and her reason for objection was a combination of the experimental emergency use status of the vaccines in addition to her already having developed antibodies from a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection incurred while working in the Hospital’s COVID unit during the peak of the 2020 pandemic.
