Mathematical modeling shows that the new coronavirus vaccine saved nearly 20 million lives worldwide in its first year of introduction, halving the number of potential deaths from new coronavirus worldwide that year, according to a paper published by British scientists in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The study, which combed data from 185 countries and territories around the world for recorded deaths and additional deaths from neocoronavirus, showed that 19.8 million of the 31.4 million potential deaths from neocoronavirus in the first year after vaccination began were saved by the vaccine. Moreover, the vaccine has benefited many people in high- and upper-middle-income countries, where researchers estimate that universal access to the vaccine has saved 12.1 million people from dying.
Oliver Watson, lead author of the latest study and a researcher at the Medical Research Council’s Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College, said the study showed that vaccination had a “significant global impact” on the new coronavirus pandemic.
The researchers also found that if the goal of vaccinating 40 percent of the population in each country by the end of 2021 is met, nearly 600,000 deaths could be prevented. In addition, nearly 80 percent of deaths were prevented by direct protection provided by vaccination, and 4.3 million deaths were prevented by indirect protection provided by vaccinators.
Previously, there have been a number of regional studies assessing how many lives were saved by the new crown vaccine, but this latest study is the first time scientists have quantified the impact of vaccination at the global level through modeling. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 250,000 people in the United States could have been spared from the disease between June 2021 and April 2022 if they had been vaccinated in a more timely manner.
