Covid vaccines prevented nearly 20 million deaths in the first year after they were introduced, according to the first large modelling study on the topic released Friday.
PARIS, France —
It found that 19.8 million deaths were prevented out of a potential 31.4 million deaths that would have occurred if no vaccines were available.The study used official figures — or estimates when official data was not available — for deaths from Covid, as well as total excess deaths from each country.
The model accounted for variation in vaccination rates across countries, as well as differences in vaccine effectiveness based on the types of vaccines known to have been primarily used in each country. Nearly 600,000 additional deaths could have been prevented if the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 40 percent of each country’s population by the end of 2021 had been met, it concluded.