COVID Vaccines Were Far Less Effective Than Media And 'Expert' Claims

It's so easy to forget now how prolific, vitriolic and repetitive the media's COVID vaccine messaging was. 

Informed by "experts" like Anthony Fauci and many others, they essentially repeated whatever Pfizer and Moderna told them about the efficacy of COVID vaccines. Leading to embarrassing performances like Stephen Colbert's "The vax-scene" musical, relentless lectures about vaccine hesitancy, and inaccurate claims meant to coerce unvaccinated people to buy in. 

And of course, there was state-enforced discrimination based on vaccination status enacted by politicians that received the media's full-throated support and promotion. 

But lost in the years since the COVID vaccine hysteria reached its fever pitch is that the data on COVID vaccine efficacy never actually matched up with what those "experts" said. In the post-pandemic period, more data has only confirmed what outsiders said about the evidence on vaccine efficacy.

Not one of those involved in misleading the public has admitted it or apologized. And new estimates released this month show just how wrong they were, and how much inaccurate information they spread.

Jun 3, 2024; Washington, DC, USA; Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies in front of the House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on June 3, 2024 in Washington.. Mandatory Credit: Josh Morgan-USA TODAY

New Study Confirms COVID Vaccine Estimates Were Wildly Wrong

Before getting into the new evidence, it's important to present context on just how extreme and misinformed discussion around COVID vaccine efficacy is and has been.

There was the infamous claim from Pfizer: that the vaccine was "100% effective" was one. The director of the CDC was out there telling the public that those who got vaccinated "…do not carry the virus, don’t get sick." Specifically stating, "(A)nd that it’s not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real world data."

Estimates presented uncritically by the media seemed to reinforce those claims; news story after news story repeated modeling estimates claiming that COVID vaccines saved 20 million lives. 

"The main finding — 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented — is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period," said one PBS News Hour story. "Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines."

The World Health Organization still, to this day, has on its website the absurd claim that "in 2021 alone, COVID-19 vaccines saved at least an estimated 14.4 million lives worldwide."

Now a new study has come to the conclusion that those estimates are many, many multiples too high. And even that may be an overestimation. 

John Ioannidis from Stanford University has previously conducted research demonstrating that the infection fatality rate from COVID was nowhere close to what the WHO and other organizations said. He's a co-author on a new paper demonstrating that estimates of lives saved by COVID vaccines were also nowhere close to previous claims.

The paper explains that "Previous efforts to estimate deaths averted by COVID-19 vaccines used epidemic modeling or counterfactuals from surveillance data." And that this is a problem because "Models may give unreliable results, depending on assumptions."

Those assumptions led to the absurdist claim of 14.4 million lives saved in one year, or "at least" 20 million total.

This study used several assumptions of its own, but based on their significantly lower estimate of vaccine efficacy, from 2020-2024, the study concludes that around "2.5 million deaths" were averted because of COVID vaccines. Not close to 20 million or 14.4 million.

"In the main analysis, more than 2.5 million deaths were averted (1 death averted per 5400 vaccine doses administered)," they write. 

Oh, and virtually all of these estimated benefits were among the elderly. Remember how consistently Fauci and his media partners demanded everyone, of all ages, get vaccinated and repeatedly boosted as soon as possible? Turns out that was almost entirely useless, and may even have led to increased vaccine hesitancy. 

Of the estimated deaths averted, "Eighty-two percent were among people vaccinated before any infection, 57% were during the Omicron period, and 90% pertained to people 60 years or older." 

Their range of lives saved was also 1.4 to 4.0 million, again, nowhere remotely close to the inflated numbers used by the WHO and media outlets. COVID vaccines accomplished virtually nothing with regard to children and young adults. Per their estimates, just 0.01% of lives saved were among these age groups, and 299 averted deaths out of a global demographic population of nearly 2.7 billion. Good luck calculating that percentage. 

Still, these estimates are almost certainly optimistic. Why? Because their assumptions are not necessarily accurate.

As one example, their lives-saved estimate is based off assumptions of the percentage of infected people pre-Omicron, as well as some level of efficacy from COVID vaccines on preventing infection. If those estimates are wrong, the calculation changes. They also assumed that vaccine efficacy against death was relatively high, based on an "aggregate estimate."

"We assumed VE=75% during the pre-Omicron period and 50% during the Omicron period. This is an aggregate estimate considering the large heterogeneity of vaccination experiences (different vaccines, some of which had probably lesser effectiveness than others (16,17), waning effectiveness especially with longterm follow-up (18,19), and also different vaccination experiences including many people who received only one or two doses in the pre-Omicron period. and one, two, three, or more doses in the Omicron period with overall lower effectiveness in the Omicron period). Sensitivity analyses considered VE values between 40% and 85% in the pre-Omicron period and 30% to 70% in the Omicron period," the study says.

So analyses of vaccine efficacy ranged from 40-85% pre-Omicron, and 30-70% during Omicron. They chose to use 75% pre-Omicron and 50% during Omicron. Whatever their reasons or justifications for choosing numbers on the higher end of the scale, if the "true" vaccine efficacy figure was closer to 40% and 30%, the number of lives saved would drop. Dramatically. 

Additionally, their study demonstrates how absurd the push to demand babies, toddlers and young adults get vaccinated was in practice. Remember how Joe Biden wanted to fire everyone who refused a COVID vaccine? And how governments imposed vaccine passports, and mandates, regardless of age? Or how vicious the media and Twitter commentators were towards unvaccinated young adults? As always, they were wrong.

"9 of 10 deaths averted were among those aged 60 or over," the study says. 

Even assuming these arguably rosy estimates are true, COVID vaccination might have averted roughly 250,000 deaths among the entire global population under age 60. Know how many people there are under 60 around the world? Nearly 6.9 billion. 250,000 lives saved out of 6.9 billion. An effectiveness percentage that's unimaginably low. And this is what they fired people for, discriminated against people for, removed them from the military for, and demonized them publicly.

As always, it gets better. 

Per their estimates, the most charitable interpretation of data suggests that there might have been 1 death averted per 100,000 vaccination doses among those aged 0-29. They suggest that efforts to vaccinate those age groups might have been due to hopes of stopping transmission. 

Except that inaccurate messaging likely "backfired," causing more infections and increased viral spread.

"False messaging that vaccination will substantially avert transmission, may even have backfired," they write. "Risk compensation with increased exposure due to false reassurance may even increase viral spread."

Additionally, they admit that the COVID vaccines were nowhere close to the benefits of established, widely used vaccines. And the misinformation from the media and global health organizations could a actually lead to increased deaths due to hestitancy towards vaccines that are more effective. 

"Therefore, even though COVID-19 vaccines are clearly a major achievement, their benefits do not necessarily match the benefits of several other widely used vaccines. Decrease in trust and increased hesitancy for these vaccines may be devastating."

Every major assertion from the media and their preferred experts has been proven wrong. They harmed children for nothing with school closures and masks. Masks did not stop viral transmission, or even slow it. COVID vaccines didn't stop the spread either. And now we have further confirmation that the "20 million lives saved" line is another complete fabrication.

The loss of trust and increased hesitancy is directly related to their arrogance, hubris, incompetence and often malicious desire for control. They earned it.