Reporting rates for VAERS death reports following COVID-19 vaccination, December 14, 2020-November 17, 2021.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Descriptive passive surveillance study compared against historical background population death rates.
PubMed 36813704 · doi:10.1002/pds.5605
What was done
This descriptive study evaluated death reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) for COVID-19 vaccine recipients aged 5 years and older (or unknown age) in the United States between December 14, 2020, and November 17, 2021. Reporting rates per million vaccinated persons were calculated for 7-day and 42-day post-vaccination windows and compared to expected background all-cause mortality rates.
What was found
A total of 9,201 death events were reported. Reporting rates increased with age and were generally higher in males than in females. For both 7-day and 42-day post-vaccination windows, observed death reporting rates were lower than expected background all-cause mortality rates. Ad26.COV2.S reporting rates were higher than mRNA vaccine rates, but remained lower than expected background rates. Specific numerical rates per million were not reported in the abstract.
Why it matters
These findings contextualize passive safety surveillance data by showing that post-vaccination death reports reflected expected baseline demographic patterns rather than excess all-cause mortality.
Limits
VAERS data rely on passive reporting and are subject to reporting bias, underreporting, and missing or inaccurate information. Reported deaths represent temporal occurrences rather than causally verified outcomes, and the study lacked an internal control group.
Cited by
- supports More than half of the deaths reported in the VAERS system following COVID-19 vaccination occurred in individuals aged 50 and older.