Covid vaccines ‘saved far fewer lives than first thought’
New study suggests true figure ‘substantially more conservative’ than WHO’s 14.4 million global estimate
Sarah Knapton Science Editor
25 July 2025 4:00pm BST
Covid vaccines saved far fewer lives than first thought, a major new analysis has concluded, with researchers criticising “aggressive mandates”.
Last year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) claimed jabs had
prevented the deaths of 14.4 million people globally in the first year alone, with some estimates putting the figure closer to 20 million.
However,
new modelling by Stanford University and Italian researchers suggests that while the vaccines did save lives, the true figure was “substantially more conservative” and
closer to 2.5 million people worldwide over the course of the pandemic.
The team estimated that
nine of 10 prevented deaths were in the over-60s, with jabs saving
just 299 people aged under 20, and 1,808 people aged between 20 and 30 globally.
Overall
5,400 people needed to be vaccinated to save one life, but
in the under-30s this figure rose to 100,000 jabs, the paper suggests.
Researchers criticised “aggressive mandates and the zealotry
to vaccinate everyone at all cost”, adding that the findings had implications for how future vaccine rollouts were handled.
John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and the study’s first author, said: “I think early estimates were based on many parameters having values that are incompatible with our current understanding.
“In principle,
targeting the populations who would get the vast majority of the benefit and letting alone those with questionable risk-benefit and cost-benefit
makes a lot of sense.
“Aggressive mandates and the zealotry to vaccinate everyone at all cost were probably a bad idea.”
‘Overly optimistic vaccine effectiveness’
More than 13 billion Covid vaccine doses have been administered since 2021. But there have been mounting concerns that vaccines
could be harmful for some people, particularly the young, and that the risk was not worth the benefit for a population at little risk from Covid.
More than 17,500 Britons have applied to
the Government’s vaccine damage payment scheme, believing they or loved ones were injured by the jabs. In June, manufacturers added warnings for myocarditis and pericarditis to the prescribing information of Covid messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.
For the new study, the experts used worldwide population data alongside vaccine effectiveness and infection fatality rates to estimate how many people died from a Covid infection before or after the periods of vaccination.
The team believes earlier modelling may have used overly pessimistic infection fatality rates and overly optimistic vaccine effectiveness, while failing to consider how quickly protection waned.
Earlier studies may also have underestimated how many people had already been unknowingly infected by the time they had the vaccine.
Benefit ‘mostly limited’ to older people
Dr Angelo Maria Pezzullo, a researcher in general and applied hygiene at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, said: “Before ours, several studies tried to estimate lives saved by vaccines with different models and in different periods or parts of the world, but this one is the most comprehensive because it is based on worldwide data. It also covers
the omicron period.
“It also calculates the number of years of life that was saved, and it is based on fewer assumptions about the pandemic trend.”
The team calculated that around 14.8 million life-years were saved, one life-year per 900 vaccine doses administered.
Researchers concluded that although vaccines had a “substantial benefit” on global mortality, it was “mostly limited” to older people.
The over-70s made up nearly 70 per cent of the lives saved, while those aged 60 to 70 accounted for a further 20 per cent. In contrast, under-20s made up just 0.01 per cent of lives saved, and 20 to 30s were 0.07 per cent.
‘Reasons for concerns are validated’
Prof Stefania Boccia, of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, added: “These estimates are substantially more conservative than previous calculations that focused mainly on the first year of vaccination, but clearly demonstrate an important overall benefit from Covid-19 vaccination over the period 2020-2024.
“Most of the benefits, in terms of lives and life-years saved, have been secured for a portion of the global population who is typically more fragile – the elderly.”
Sir David Davis, the former Brexit secretary who fought against
vaccine mandates, said: “Frankly it’s a good cautionary tale that if we have another pandemic we should be far more clinical about the risk-benefit ratio.
“We knew pretty quickly who the most susceptible groups were and we should have focused very strictly on them, rather than placing people who were at little risk
in hazard’s way.
“The level of aggression of trying to force people to become vaccinated and shutting down people who were raising concerns, the reasons for those concerns are all validated in this report.”
The new research was published in Jama Health Forum.
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