New estimates published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal suggest that at least 1.6 million European lives have been directly saved by COVID-19 vaccinations, 60% of them when Omicron became the dominant strain of the virus, but this figure is likely an underestimate.
As of March 2023, 2.2 million COVID-19-related deaths have been reported across Europe.
The data came from the World Health Organization's European Respiratory Surveillance Network and analysed vaccination activities in the European Region, including both the first vaccination and booster vaccination periods, from December 2020 to March 2023. Thirty-four of the Region's 54 countries were included in the study.
In 34 countries, by March 2023, total over-vaccination coverage among all adults aged 25 years and older was 87% for the first vaccination series, 82% for the second dose, 71% for the first booster, 24% for the second booster, and 5% for the third booster.
The study disaggregated deaths by age group (25-49 years, 50-59 years, 60+ years, 60-69 years, 70-79 years, 80+ years). Countries were included if they reported weekly data on both COVID-19 vaccination and age-specific mortality rates for at least 90% of the weeks studied.
The first booster shot saved most lives
Each week was also associated with a variant of concern (VOC), which accounted for more than 50% of sequences per week.
The authors note that there were 1,064,165 COVID-19-related deaths in people aged 25 years or older across the 29 countries, of which 454,131 (43%) were people aged 80 years or older. In contrast, 40,788 (4%) and 19,831 (2%) of the COVID-19-related deaths were in people aged 50-59 and 25-49 years, respectively.
Most of the reported deaths occurred during the Omicron period.
“When considering mortality rates per mutation month (PVM) for each VOC, regardless of age, the highest number of reported deaths was during the Omicron phase (390,358 deaths), whereas the highest number of reported PVM deaths was during the Delta phase (33,234 deaths),” the authors wrote.
Overall, people aged 60 years and older accounted for 96% of all lives saved, and people aged 80 years and older accounted for 52% of all lives saved.
In the temporal analysis, the first booster dose saved the most lives (51% of all lives saved), matching the 60% of lives saved during the Omicron period. The administration of the first booster doses began around week 30 of 2021 in Europe.
In an editorial on the study, Dr Oliver Watson and Dr Alexandra Hogan of Imperial College London wrote that the number of lives saved reported by the authors is probably an underestimate.
“This study does not take into account the additional herd effect of COVID-19 vaccination, which reduces infection at the population level indirectly reducing the risk of infection and therefore the number of deaths in unvaccinated populations,” the researchers wrote.
“Second, estimates of the number of deaths averted are based on countries' reported COVID-19 mortality rates, which are known to underestimate the true burden of COVID-19.”
