VAERS lists more than 1.49 million reports of adverse reactions after Covid vaccination
This article has been updated with the latest EudraVigilance data.
The database of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the US now lists 1,490,160 adverse event reports after Covid vaccination, including adverse reactions reported after administration of the new bivalent boosters. The new statistics were published on December 30, 2022, and are dated up to December 23.
Including adverse reactions reported after administration of the new bivalent boosters, 6,794,819 individual-symptom events are listed (many reports include more than one symptom).
VAERS now has a separate category, ‘COVID19-2’, which contains data about the new bivalent boosters. In this category, there are 14,021 reports of adverse reactions up to December 23,117 reports of death after vaccination, and 158 reports of permanent disability (99 after administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 59 after administration of the Moderna vaccine). A total 53,023 individual-symptom events are listed.
As of December 28, 47.1 million people in the US had received a bivalent booster dose.
ALL THE FOLLOWING DATA ARE FROM BOTH COVID VACCINE CATEGORIES COMBINED
There is a new disclaimer on the wonder.cdc.gov website. It states: “At the request of European regulators, CDC and FDA have removed certain data fields (country codes; reported symptom case narrative free text; diagnostic laboratory data free text field; illness at time of vaccination free text field; chronic conditions free text medical history field; allergies free text field) from foreign VAERS reports which were submitted to VAERS and may not comply with European regulations. Domestic (U.S.) VAERS reports are not affected by this process.”
VAERS puts the total number of deaths after Covid vaccination, as of December 23 and in all locations, at 33,334 (16,155 from US states and territories or a location reported as unknown and 17,179 from foreign locations).
This figure includes the 76 reported deaths after administration of the new Pfizer-BioNTech booster and 41 after administration of the new Moderna booster.
According to VAERS, a total 21,087 deaths followed administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, 9,311 followed administration of the Moderna vaccines, and 2,882 followed administration of the Janssen Biotech vaccine. In 218 cases, the name of the vaccine manufacturer was not specified in the report. (There’s a discrepancy between the 33,334 figure and the latter 33,498 total.)
A total 4,021 of the reported deaths occurred on the same day as vaccination, 3,080 occurred the following day, 565 occurred within seven days, and 1,558 occurred within ten to 14 days.
According to Worldometers.info there had been 1,117,751deaths from Covid-19 in the US as of December 30, 2022.
According to the CDC’s Covid data tracker, 663,822,575 Covid vaccine doses had been administered in the US as of December 28.
On VAERS 888,511 reports (up to December 23 and in all locations) relate to adverse events after administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines (4,248,729 individual-symptom events), 506,118 refer to the Moderna vaccines (2,117,200 individual-symptom events), 96,448 refer to the Janssen Biotech vaccine (432,603 individual-symptom events), 207 reports relate to the Novavax vaccine (817 individual-symptom events), and 9,760 relate to an unknown vaccine manufacturer (39,980 individual-symptom events). There’s a discrepancy between the 1,490,160 total and this one (1,501,044).
The total number of reported adverse reactions resulting in permanent disability is put at 61,575. VAERS lists, as of December 23, 43,810 cases after administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, 14,726 after administration of the Moderna vaccines, 3,113 after administration of the Janssen Biotech vaccine, and nine after administration of the Novavax vaccine. In 269 cases, the vaccine manufacturer was not specified. There’s again a discrepancy in the totals.
As of December 23 VAERS lists 11,047 reports of seizures after Covid vaccination. Some other adverse reactions such as generalised tonic-clonic seizure (1,240), seizure-like phenomena (626), and partial seizures (282) are listed separately.
There are 13,187 reports of a pulmonary embolism and 10,239 reports of thrombosis, with separate listings for specific types of thrombosis, such as deep vein thrombosis (8,621), pulmonary thrombosis (1,090), and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (942). There are 194,075 reports of people being diagnosed with Covid-19.
There are 8,968 reports of a cerebrovascular accident, 12,106 reports of sleep disorders, 13,733 reports of herpes zoster (plus 1,669 other herpes zoster reports listed separately, including herpes zoster reactivation), 2,309 reports of blindness, and 3,360 reports of deafness. As of December 23 there were 23,842 reports of tinnitus.
There are also 3,497 reports of spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) listed on VAERS as of December 23 along with 150 reports of stillbirth, 15,418 reports of heavy menstrual bleeding, 4,120 reports of intermenstrual bleeding, 9,099 reports of irregular menstruation, and 4,798 reports of delayed menstruation.
There are 3,154 reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) listed on VAERS as of December 23, along with 6,872 reports of Bell’s palsy, 9,065 reports categorised as facial paralysis, and 1,953 reports of facial paresis.
There are 16,324 reports of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) after Covid vaccination listed in the VAERS data up to December 23. VAERS lists 84 reports of viral myocarditis, 21 cases of eosinophilic myocarditis, nine cases of giant cell myocarditis, nine cases of hypersensitivity myocarditis, eight cases of infectious myocarditis, six cases of immune-mediated myocarditis, five reports of autoimmune myocarditis, four cases of septic myocarditis, three cases of post-infection myocarditis, two cases of mycotic myocarditis, two cases of bacterial myocarditis, two cases of coxsackie myocarditis, two cases of chronic myocarditis, and one case of enterovirus myocarditis.
The VAERS data also includes 10,830 reports of pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart), 619 cases of myopericarditis, 99 cases of pleuropericarditis, 57 cases of viral pericarditis, 35 cases of constrictive pericarditis, 15 cases of infective pericarditis, five cases of purulent pericarditis, three cases of adhesive pericarditis, two cases of bacterial pericarditis, two cases of autoimmune pericarditis, one case of uraemic pericarditis, one case of rheumatic pericarditis, one case of gonococcal pericarditis, one case of cytomegalovirus pericarditis, and one case of lupus pericarditis.
A total 8,735 reports of an anaphylactic reaction after Covid vaccination are listed up to December 23 .
EudraVigilance
As of December 31, 2022, EudraVigilance lists 2,167,439 adverse reaction cases that relate to the five vaccines authorised for use in Europe.
The database lists 1,188,281 individual cases up to December 31 for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (tozinameran). Most are from Germany (211,386), followed by France (126,549), and the Netherlands (126,549).
A total 541,828 cases are listed for the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine with the most listed in Germany (54,235), followed by Austria (41,262), and the Netherlands (37,979).
A total 365,274 cases are listed for the Moderna vaccine (elasomeran). Most are from Germany (63,956), followed by the Netherlands (49,742), and France with 33,346.
A total 70,533 cases are listed for the Janssen Biotech vaccine. Most are from the Netherlands (15,052), followed by Germany with 11,889, and Austria (11,198).
A total 1,523 cases are listed for the Novavax vaccine. Most are from Germany (974), followed by Italy with 158 cases, and France with 106.
There is more detail about these statistics on my Changing Times website along with data from other adverse event databases.
The World Health Organisation updates its VigiBase statistics every Sunday and the EudraVigilance data is usually updated every Saturday.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia publishes a Covid-19 vaccine safety report every two weeks and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the UK publishes a summary of Yellow Card reporting once a month.
See my Substack article of December 18 for details of the TGA’s summary published on December 15 and its abbreviated safety report published on December 22.