Lack of association between vaccination rates and excess mortality in Cyprus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vaccine
; 41(18): 2941-2946, 2023 05 02.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2270044
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
It has been claimed that COVID-19 vaccination is associated with excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic, a claim that contributes to vaccine hesitancy. We examined whether all-cause mortality has actually increased in Cyprus during the first two pandemic years, and whether any increases are associated with vaccination rates.METHODS:
We calculated weekly excess mortality for Cyprus between January 2020 and June 2022, overall and by age group, using both a Distributed Lag Nonlinear Model (DLNM) adjusted for mean daily temperature, and the EuroMOMO algorithm. Excess deaths were regressed on the weekly number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths and on weekly first-dose vaccinations, also using a DLNM to explore the lag-response dimension.RESULTS:
552 excess deaths were observed in Cyprus during the study period (95% CI 508-597) as opposed to 1306 confirmed COVID-19 deaths. No association between excess deaths and vaccination rates was found overall and for any age group except 18-49 years, among whom 1.09 excess deaths (95% CI 0.27-1.91) per 10,000 vaccinations were estimated during the first 8 weeks post-vaccination. However, detailed cause-of-death examination identified just two such deaths potentially linked to vaccination, therefore this association is spurious and attributable to random error.CONCLUSIONS:
Excess mortality was moderately increased in Cyprus during the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily as a result of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 deaths. No relationship was found between vaccination rates and all-cause mortality, demonstrating the excellent safety profile of COVID-19 vaccines.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Vaccines
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Humans
/
Middle aged
/
Young adult
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Vaccine
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Article
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