No, scientists have not concluded that COVID-19 vaccines may have contributed to persistent excess deaths

Context

On June 5, 2024, the Telegraph, a U.K. news outlet, published an article (archived here) titled "COVID-19 vaccines may have helped fuel rise in excess deaths." According to the article, a team of scientists from the Netherlands analyzed mortality data from 47 Western countries and found there had been "unprecedented" levels of excess deaths since 2020, continuing even after widespread COVID-19 vaccinations had been rolled out. 

The article implies the continuing trend of excess deaths may be linked to COVID-19 vaccines and quotes from the report, saying, "Both medical professionals and citizens have reported serious injuries and deaths following vaccination to various official databases in the Western World."

The article has been reshared on social media sites. One post shared it with the caption, "I told you so. The vaccine is more deadly than the virus. Fact!"

The article and claims excess deaths have been linked to vaccines have also been shared by politicians ahead of the U.K. general election. 

The report discussed in The Telegraph article is a real, peer-reviewed study published in BMJ Public Health Journal. However, the study does not draw any causal link between COVID-19 vaccines and excess deaths, nor was it designed to do so. 

What we found

On June 3, 2024, a study titled "Excess mortality across countries in the Western World since the COVID-19 pandemic: 'Our World in Data' estimates of January 2020 to December 2022” was published in the BMJ Public Health Journal. The study examined mortality data in 47 Western countries between January 2020 and December 2022 to determine the number of excess deaths recorded within that period. 

The researchers define the term excess deaths as "the deviation between the reported number of deaths in a country during a certain week or month in 2020 until 2022 and the expected or projected number of deaths in a country for that period under normal conditions." In the context of COVID-19, excess deaths can be attributed either directly to infection from the virus or indirectly to factors linked to the pandemic and pandemic response, such as disrupted access to essential health services. 

The researchers used data from Our World in Data in their study. They found that a total of 3,098,456 excess deaths had been recorded across the countries they examined between January 2020 and December 2022 and that excess deaths had continued after COVID-19 vaccines had been rolled out. The highest numbers of excess deaths (1,256,942 deaths) were recorded in January 2021 despite the fact pandemic containment measures and vaccines had been introduced. It is worth noting the U.K. continued to record very high rates of infection during this period. 

"The next step concerns distinguishing between the various potential contributors to excess mortality, including COVID-19 infection, indirect effects of containment measures and COVID-19 vaccination programs," they argue. Crucially, the study does not distinguish between these potential factors nor draw any causal links as it has not been designed to do this. 

The researchers also point to factors that could have indirectly contributed to excess deaths, such as increased rates of childhood malnutrition as a result of the economic consequences of COVID-19 infection and delayed medical treatment because of disruptions to public health services. 

The Telegraph states that the researchers said medical professionals and citizens had reported adverse events from vaccines to government databases but leaves out that the databases the researchers were referring to included the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS. This is important, as VAERS is a U.S. early warning system that allows anyone to report an adverse event following vaccination, even if the adverse event has not been proven to be linked to the COVID-19 vaccine. The VAERS website makes this clear, stating, "As an early warning system, VAERS cannot prove that a vaccine caused a problem. Specifically, a report to VAERS does not mean that a vaccine caused an adverse event."

The researchers also point out that COVID-19 vaccines have been linked to cases of thrombosis, cardiovascular events, and myocarditis, among other adverse events. However, the researchers say this to argue that this warrants further investigation to see if these side effects from the vaccines can be linked to excess deaths. It is also worth noting that infection from COVID-19 has also been linked to increased risks of cardiovascular disease, myocarditis, and thrombosis as long as six months after infection. 

Excess deaths are down 

Dr. Katrine Wallace is an epidemiologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago's School of Public Health. She told Logically Facts it is far more likely that the excess deaths are linked to COVID-19 infection itself rather than the vaccines. 

"Excess deaths began in March of 2020, way before the rollout of the vaccines," she said. "The only places in 2020 that didn't have excess deaths were countries like Australia and New Zealand, which had completely closed borders. Again, no vaccine then, which shows us it was the virus causing excess death everywhere else.” 

Our World in Data shows higher rates of COVID-19 deaths among unvaccinated patients than vaccinated patients. Countries like the U.S. reported particularly stark differences. In January 2022, the rate of death among unvaccinated patients was 32.39 deaths per 100,000 people, while among vaccinated patients it was 3.53 deaths per 100,000 people. A similar pattern was observed in England when, in October 2021, there were 23.80 deaths per 100,000 people recorded among unvaccinated patients and 5.20 deaths per 100,000 among fully vaccinated patients.  

More recent data indicates that excess deaths have been declining worldwide. For example, in the U.S., excess deaths have declined from a peak of 46 percent above estimated deaths in January 2021 to 5 percent above estimated deaths in December 2023. Similarly, in the U.K., excess deaths have declined from a peak of 107 percent above estimated deaths in April 2020 to 13 percent above estimated deaths in December 2023. 

The verdict

An article from The Telegraph claims that scientists have found that COVID-19 vaccines may be linked to an increase in excess deaths. However, this is a misleading interpretation of a study that found that Western nations continued to report excess deaths after COVID-19 containment measures and vaccines had been introduced. The researchers did not draw a causal link between COVID-19 vaccines and excess deaths. We have, therefore, rated this claim as misleading. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19, including symptoms, prevention, and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organization or your national healthcare authority.