Lives saved by COVID‐19 vaccines

Outside clinical trials, the first COVID‐19 vaccine was administered on 8 December 2020. Researchers aimed to quantify the global impact of the first year of COVID‐19 vaccination programmes using mathematical modelling to fit COVID‐19 transmission and vaccination to reported COVID‐19 mortality and all‐cause excess mortality in 185 countries and territories. ¹ They determined the number of lives lost if there had been no vaccines. Based on reported COVID‐19 deaths, vaccinations prevented an estimated 14.4 million deaths (95% credible interval [Crl] 13.7–15.9) from COVID‐19 in a year. However, if excess deaths were used, this estimate rose to 19.8 million (95% Crl 19.1–20.4) deaths prevented (Fig. 1), equating to a global reduction of 63% in total deaths (19.8 million of 31.4 million) during the first year of COVID‐19 vaccination. Delivery of vaccines to low‐income countries has been far lower than promised. ² In COVID‐19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Advance Market Commitment countries, an estimated 7.4 million [95% Crl 6.8–7.7] of 17.9 million excess deaths were prevented, but millions more lives could have been saved with better coverage. COVID‐19 vaccination altered the pandemic course, saving tens of millions of lives globally. However, vaccines had less effect in low‐income countries due to inadequate access, emphasising the importance of global vaccine equity.

Fig. 1.

Median number of daily COVID‐19 deaths based on excess mortality estimates (grey vertical bars) in the first year of vaccination and modelled numbers of deaths averted. (), Excess mortality data; (), model fit to excess mortality; (), model fit without vaccines; (), deaths averted by vaccines (direct); (), deaths averted by vaccines (indirect).