Perhaps. It's all speculation of course.

There were plenty of "first vaxed" that did have negative side effects. But it was also strange that the initial reports showed that 80% of the negative side effects reported (including death) all came from the same like 12 or so locations -- which would imply that if they were swapping with saline, it may have been the vast majority of jabs. Alternatively, those locations just all had bad vials (though I'm not sure how it could be worse than what's supposed to be in it already).

I don't have that spreadsheet anymore that showed the adverse reaction table broken down by location, but it was circulating on the wins for a while. Someone else may still have it?