LONDON: A newly released study does not say that COVID-19 vaccines have contributed to excess deaths worldwide, contrary to claims circulating on social media.
The journal that published the study issued a statement clarifying that various news outlets have misreported the findings. The statement emphasizes that “the research does not support the claim that vaccines are a major contributory factor to excess deaths since the start of the pandemic.”
Health data experts interviewed by Reuters also confirmed that while the study, published by BMJ Public Health, addresses excess mortality during the 2020-2022 pandemic period, it does not implicate COVID-19 vaccines as a cause of these deaths.
Nevertheless, social media posts, referencing a Daily Telegraph article, misinterpreted the study, claiming it supports the notion of a link between vaccines and excess deaths. One such post on X, which garnered over four million views, misleadingly cited the headline “Covid vaccines may have helped fuel rise in excess deaths.”
What the Study Showed
According to the BMJ Public Health statement, “The researchers looked only at trends in excess mortality over time, not its causes.” Public health data scientists told Reuters the paper did not establish a causal link to vaccines and indicated that excess deaths had begun declining in 2022.
Excess deaths are calculated as the number of deaths during a specific period exceeding what would be expected based on historical data, as per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study reported around 1 million excess deaths across 47 Western countries in 2020, 1.2 million in 2021, and 800,000 in 2022, based on Our World in Data figures. According to the World Mortality Dataset (WMD), excess mortality in these countries dropped to 175,000 in 2023, contradicting the Telegraph’s implication of a continued rise.
Data scientist Jeffrey Morris, a professor of public health at the University of Pennsylvania, remarked, “The paper says there were excess deaths in most of these countries in 2020, and it didn’t stop in 2020, it continued in 2021 and 2022. Honestly, that is all this paper shows. I don’t know why they published this paper.”
Insinuation Without Evidence
While the analysis mentions certain COVID-19 vaccines and suspected adverse effects, it does not attribute excess deaths to these vaccines. The authors note that “suspected adverse events have been documented,” but there is no consensus that mRNA vaccines cause more harm than initially forecasted.
Stuart McDonald, deputy chair of the Continuous Mortality Investigation, explained, “The study’s authors don’t say it’s the vaccines causing the excess deaths. But they insinuate. There’s this insinuation that it’s all about the lockdowns and the vaccines, which just isn’t supported by the data.”
McDonald added that if vaccines were causing harm, it would be difficult to explain why countries with the highest vaccination rates, such as New Zealand, Denmark, and Australia, had the lowest excess deaths, while less-vaccinated countries like Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro had the highest.
He emphasized that while vaccine-related harms have occurred, they are rare, and overall, vaccines have significantly reduced mortality worldwide. Charts by Ariel Karlinsky and Dmitry Kobak, creators of the WMD, show that excess mortality peaks align with COVID-19 death peaks.
The study’s lead author and The Telegraph did not respond to requests for comment.
The Netherlands-based Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology, associated with three of the study’s four authors, issued a statement distancing itself from the study. “We strongly support vaccination and this publication should not be read as an argument against vaccination. The study does not demonstrate a link between vaccinations and excess mortality; that is explicitly not the researchers’ finding.”
World Child Cancer also released a statement saying it was incorrectly listed as a funder of the study.
Verdict
False. The study provides no evidence of an ongoing rise in excess deaths following the COVID-19 pandemic or of a causal link between COVID-19 vaccines and excess deaths.
