Dutch-Canadian develops heart failure after taking COVID booster to comply with travel mandates
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Now on a transplant list, Alex has to carry a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) machine with him, a device connected to his damaged heart by a tube that runs through his stomach
(Vision Times) — A Dutch-Canadian man developed severe heart failure and now requires a heart transplant, a condition which developed shortly after taking the booster shot of Pfizer’s Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) mRNA gene therapy vaccine in order to meet pandemic era travel requirements to enter Canada to see his children.
Before heart failure changed his life forever, Alex van Kooten was an otherwise extremely healthy and fit 52-year-old who frequently enjoyed sports and leisure activities, such as skiing, bicycle racing, and kite surfing.
Alex, who was born in the Netherlands, immigrated to Canada with his parents at the age of 9, spending most of his life in the Toronto and London regions of Ontario before relocating to the Caribbean after completing his professional career.
Once a corporate salesperson and sales manager for companies such as Hilti and Black & Decker, Alex and his wife decided it was time for a change and moved to Aruba to manage property in 2017.
Trapped in paradise
For the couple, once the COVID-19 pandemic began and worldwide lockdowns started to hit in the beginning of 2020, leaving the island suddenly became off the table.
Seemingly overnight, Aruba had transformed from a sunny island paradise into a 180 square kilometer waiting area.
“I had worked very hard in my life at an early age, and decided to semi-retire,” Alex told Vision Times. “That’s why we moved to Aruba to enjoy the weather, and then COVID hit, and needless to say that we were kind of stuck.”
Alex continued, “And we’re hoping, obviously, that things would go better. We had our own little business there with vacation homes, and of course with the lockdowns, that didn’t go very well.”
“And then finally, after two years of not seeing the children, the only option we had to see the children was to get vaccinated in order to get back into Canada,” he added.
But plans to return home to visit with their adult children proved difficult to arrange. At the end of January of 2021, the Government of Canada declared it was suspending travel from Caribbean countries, effective until the end of April.
A press release by Transport Canada at the time announcing the Caribbean suspension also told the public that “all air travelers arriving in Canada, with very limited exceptions, must reserve a room in a Government of Canada-approved hotel for three nights at their own cost.”