Last year, I wrote a long article about the harmfulness of the Covid vaccines. Although most of it was simply reporting the contents of academic medical papers, I did make one original contribution to the subject by analyzing the quantitative relationship between countries’ vaccination rates and subsequent death rates.
Almost all countries publish summary statistics on all sorts of health data, including country-wide vaccination rates and death rates, and that information is aggregated by data reporting websites like Our World In Data. Finding a relationship between previous Covid vaccinations and later mortality, even if it’s for whole countries rather than for individuals, can suggest a link between the two. (Using individuals’ health data would obviously be much better, but that data is hard to get.) It would be encouraging if countries which inoculated more of their residents against Covid had fewer overall deaths afterwards, but unfortunately the effect is reliably the opposite sign. So, my article last year correlated Covid vaccinations and all-cause mortality for every country in the world that provided such data. I found that the countries which vaccinated the most people in 2021 suffered the highest excess mortality (more deaths than expected compared to deaths in previous years) in 2022. This result was statistically significant but not large. That is to say, it was big enough to not have been caused by random chance, but small enough to be fairly inconsequential for most people.
Now, in 2024, country-level health data for the year 2023 is available online at ourworldindata.org, so I am doing an update. The report I wrote last year was very long. This update will be brief. I won’t include any details about how I processed the data. I used exactly the same method as last year, so anyone interested can read what I wrote then. (I realize that exactly zero people will be interested in this, but last year I felt compelled to explain what I did in enough detail that my results could be easily replicated.) All I will report in this update are the final results.
First, let me repeat what I found last year. Using each country as a data point, I ran a linear regression of how countries’ total vaccinations per person in 2021 affected those countries’ excess mortality in percent in 2022. This is the regression summarized in one line:
| Predictor | Coefficient | T-Statistic | P-value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vaccinations | 6.05 | 3.50 | 0.0009 |
The estimated formula linking past vaccinations to later deaths is:
- excess_mortality_percent_2022 = 6.05 * total_vaccinations_per_person_2021
The explanation in English:
This regression shows a 6% increase in all-cause deaths in 2022 for every vaccination given in 2021, a T-statistic of 3.50 which means the relationship of vaccinations to deaths is statistically significant, and a less than 0.1% chance that this large an effect could occur randomly.
To be clear, the 6% increase in all-cause deaths from vaccinations does not mean that the all-cause death rate increased from 1% of the population per year (typical of Western nations) to 7%, which would be catastrophic. It means it increased from 1% to 1.06%, which is pretty trivial.
These are the results from the new data available this year, showing how 2022 vaccinations affected 2023 deaths:
| Predictor | Coefficient | T-statistic | P-value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vaccinations | 8.31 | 3.84 | 0.0003 |
The forecasting formula is:
- excess_mortality_percent_2023 = 8.31 * total_vaccinations_per_person_2022
The results in English:
This regression shows an 8% increase in all-cause deaths in 2023 for every vaccination given in 2022, a T-statistic of 3.84 which means the relationship of vaccinations to deaths is statistically significant, and a much less than 0.1% chance that this large an effect could occur randomly.
To summarize: What I found last year was that the more people got vaccinated in 2021, the more people died in 2022. This update finds the same relationship between vaccinations in 2022 and deaths in 2023. Compared to the earlier results, the new T-statistic is similar (it is about as statistically significant) and the new coefficient is larger (there were more deaths per vaccination). But whether the effect on deaths is 6% or 8%, I still consider this basically inconsequential. Of course, vaccine believers assured us that the vaccines would save many lives, not take many lives.
Below is a graph of X = vaccinations in 2022 vs. Y = mortality in 2023 for all nations with publicly available data, showing unmistakably more deaths during 2023 in the countries which vaccinated the most during 2022. Each data point is labeled with the country’s name and the best-fit line for all the points is shown in blue:
The outlier point for Japan deserves special mention. Japan continues to demonstrate the Asian stereotype of extreme social conformity. They are literally the only country in the world to inject more than 1 vaccine per citizen during 2022. In fact, the average Japanese adult has now received 2 original shots plus 2 to 3 booster shots for a total of 4 to 5 Covid vaccinations. And they apparently will not stop getting jabbed until the government tells them to stop. When that day comes, I’m sure they will follow the new commands just as obediently as they did the old commands.
Now that I have two years of consecutive data (2021 vaccinations/2022 mortality and 2022 vaccinations/2023 mortality), I can combine them into one regression (2021 and 2022 vaccinations predicting 2022 and 2023 deaths). Combining the 2021/2022 data with the 2022/2023 data increases the power of the regression. Not only are there twice as many points in the combined analysis, but the data values have a wider range. In 2021, most countries vaccinated most of their citizens (the average number of vaccines given was 1.5 per person). In 2022, those same countries vaccinated far fewer people (the average shots given per person was only 0.4). Combining both years of data encompasses a wider range of national vaccination policies (1 – 2 vaccines per person in 2021 and 0 – 1 vaccines per person in 2022), so this provides more of a contrast to enable the calculation to better distinguish between good and bad policies.
Here are the combined results, showing 2021 vaccinations causing 2022 deaths plus 2022 vaccinations causing 2023 deaths:
| Predictor | Coefficient | T-statistic | P-value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vaccinations | 6.26 | 5.10 | 0.0000 |
The corresponding formula is:
- excess_mortality_percent_2022_2023 = 6.26 * total_vaccinations_per_person_2021_2022
In English:
This regression shows a 6% increase in all-cause deaths in 2022 and 2023 for every vaccination given in 2021 and 2022, a high T-statistic of 5.10 which means the relationship of vaccinations to deaths is very statistically significant, and an almost 0.0% chance that this large an effect could occur randomly.
The combined scatter plot of vaccinations vs. mortality really shows how bad the high vaccination country-years were. Each country appears twice, with the high vaccine/high death year of 2021/2022 in red (for danger) and the low vaccine/low death year of 2022/2023 in green (for relative safety):
Note that the values on the X axis span a larger range than on the previous graph (0 to 2.5 vaccinations per person rather than 0 to 1.5). This makes it easier for the regression (and even just the human eye) to distinguish countries’ bad vaccination policies (lots of shots in 2021 causing high excess mortality in 2022) from countries’ good vaccination policies (few shots in 2022 causing low excess mortality in 2023).
It is wonderful news that excess mortality dropped so much between 2022 and 2023. It fell especially sharply in the US and is now near zero here. (You can see the red and green points labeled “United States” under the two years of points for “Uruguay” in the graph above.) Whether this is because the Covid pandemic is over so people are no longer dying of Covid, or because the Covid vaccination program became unpopular so people are no longer dying from the vaccines, I don’t know.
(By the way, a technical note: excess mortality was much lower everywhere in 2023 than in 2022. Global excess mortality is now close to zero, meaning death rates on average have returned to their pre-Covid levels. This could be because vaccination rates were much lower in 2022 than in 2021. Or maybe it’s because the Covid pandemic ended after Omicron in 2022 so there were fewer Covid deaths in 2023. Or perhaps it is something else altogether. Nobody knows. But to control for the possibility that 2023 was different from 2022 for reasons that have nothing to do with the vaccines, I ran the multiple regression above with a year indicator variable to remove the different yearly means of the excess mortality rates. This indicator variable entered extremely insignificantly and did not substantially change the coefficient on vaccinations. Because it was statistically insignificant, I could just remove the variable from the regression. However, to be extra cautious, I have left it in. Without the year variable, the linear regression would show vaccinations causing slightly more deaths than in the table above. I’m trying to bend over backwards to be objective and not anti-vax, but no matter what I do the country data still shows that the vaccines caused excess deaths.)
The Covid vaccines came out more than 3 years ago, and almost no one still believes the ridiculous story they told us then that the vaccines prevent Covid infection and transmission. But most people do believe that the vaccines lessen the severity of the disease, reducing their risk of hospitalization and death from Covid. And they are probably right about that. But no matter how effective the vaccines may be, if my regressions are correct, the lives they save are still outnumbered by the deaths they cause, so the net effect of getting vaccinated – less severe Covid but more severe side effects – is to increase your chance of dying. And what causes more deaths almost certainly also causes more hospitalizations, injuries, sickness, and pain. The net effect of the Covid vaccines has been to increase mortality and morbidity.
My regression analysis showing net harm from the vaccines is also fully consistent with the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials which found that the vaccines reduced hospitalizations and deaths from Covid, but increased hospitalizations and deaths from side effects, with the net result being that the vaccinated group suffered worse health outcomes – more severe illness, hospitalizations, and deaths – than the placebo group. The pharmaceutical companies’ own clinical trials showed unequivocally “vaccinated group sick / placebo group healthy.” They summarized these terrible results for the public as “vaccinated group healthy / placebo group sick.” Then they made billions of dollars selling this junk to people who clamored to take it.
The pharma companies even published the clinical trial reports online, knowing that no one would ever read them. Or, more precisely, 99% of Americans couldn’t understand them, and the 1% who could, such as the FDA, do not believe in the principle “tell the truth and let the people decide.” Their principle is “lie to control what people do”, which is the opposite. Pharma bet, correctly, that no matter how big their lie, no one in authority would ever contradict them.
Last year, I also performed the same type of regression analysis on vaccination and mortality data for the 50 states in the US. I found no statistically significant effect of vaccinations on deaths in the US. The states which vaccinated a lot (typically blue states) had no higher or lower excess mortality than the states which vaccinated a little (red states). This year, using updated state-level data for vaccination rates in 2022 to forecast excess mortality in 2023, the results were the same – no statistically significant effect of vaccinations on deaths among the different US states.
I can also combine the two years of US state data that are now available like I did with the country data. Here is the plot of both years of points combined. Each state appears twice, with the 2021 values (high vaccination/high death) in red and the 2022 values (low vaccination/low death) in green. The difference between the two years is obvious:
This plot shows the two sets of yearly points, which are visibly quite distinct – the 2021/2022 data are the cluster of red points in the upper right corner showing high vaccination rates and high mortality rates, and the 2022/2023 data are the cluster of green points in the lower left corner showing low vaccination and low mortality. The blue best-fit line shows an unmistakable relationship between vaccinations and deaths. Doing a simple linear regression of these two years of vaccinations predicting excess deaths produces an extremely significant result. However, this is entirely driven by the lower average mortality rates in 2023 than in 2022 which may have been caused simply by fewer Covid deaths. When I put a yearly indicator variable in the regression, the effect of vaccinations on deaths becomes statistically insignificant, so I can’t be certain that the huge drop in US mortality in 2023 was caused by the huge drop in US vaccinations in 2022.
The fact that these two years of US state data form such distinct clusters shows two things clearly:
- Americans took a lot fewer vaccines in 2022 than in 2021.
- Americans suffered a lot fewer deaths in 2023 than in 2022.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the fewer vaccines in 2022 caused the fewer deaths in 2023. But it’s certainly consistent with the claim that the vaccines cause deadly short-term side effects. However, it’s not consistent with the belief that the vaccines cause deadly long-term side effects. In fact, the return to normal mortality levels in 2023 is pretty strong evidence that the Covid vaccines don’t increase fatalities long-term.
There are two models of harmful side effects that a medical treatment could cause:
- It could be like a poison. The day you ingest a poison is the day it’s most likely to kill you. Every day after that, your body flushes some of it out of your system, and the danger diminishes. After a week or a month or a year, depending on the poison, it’s all gone from your system so it can no longer hurt you.
- It could be like a carcinogen. The day you ingest a cancer-causing chemical, it produces no immediate harm. But every day after that, the carcinogen causes mutations in some of your cells, potentially turning them cancerous. Many years later, those damaged cells may develop into a cancer that kills you.
So far, I think most evidence shows the Covid vaccine to be a poison, not a carcinogen. Eventually your body degrades and destroys the lipid nanoparticles and the mRNA they contain and the Spike proteins they produce. After that, they’re gone. This doesn’t prove that the vaccine can’t also be a cancer-causing agent in addition to being a poison. But most things are one or the other, not both, and the Covid vaccine looks very much like a poison, not a carcinogen. Its dangers appear to decrease over time, not increase. The fact is, billions of people took the Covid vaccine worldwide in 2021. Then those vaccinated people died in unprecedented numbers in 2022, but had normal death numbers in 2023. This matches the profile of a poison. If the Covid vaccine behaved like a carcinogen, there would have been no adverse health effects the day, week, month, or year after the shot. Excess mortality would have been low in 2022 but rising in 2023. Instead, it was high in 2022 but falling in 2023. That’s the behavior of a short-acting poison, not a long-acting carcinogen.
Two years ago, the media (or at least the non-corporate media) was full of stories about the seemingly apocalyptic level of excess mortality around the world. Death rates were at record highs in almost every country on earth. People disagreed about what caused it, but there was no denying that it was happening. Anti-vaxxers noticed that the highest death rates happened in the countries which had vaccinated the most people. Pro-vaxxers ignored this fact and said the deaths just showed how dangerous Covid was so how necessary the vaccines were.
But last year (and so far this year) those scare stories have disappeared from the news. Excess mortality has fallen to near zero globally. Death rates have returned to normal almost everywhere, including in the United States. Whether this is because Covid is gone or because people stopped taking the deadly vaccines is hard to say, although I’m sure both anti-vaxxers and pro-vaxxers are certain that it just proves how right they were all along.
So, the apocalypse never happened, and probably never will. People have been predicting a religious apocalypse for 2000 years. Now, in our secular age, people seem to want to believe in a technological apocalypse. I, for one, am sick of apocalyptic predictions. 2000 years of false alarms is enough. The world is not coming to an end – not from Covid, and not from the Covid vaccines.
Eugene Kusmiak was a Red Diaper Baby and a Harvard graduate. After nearly two decades spent creating video games in Silicon Valley, Gene shifted coasts and professions. He retired from a 20-year career as a Portfolio Manager at a quantitative hedge fund in Manhattan in 2022. He survived being surrounded by progressives in Massachusetts, California, and New York and now enjoys living in rural red-state Ohio.
