VAERS lists more than 1.5 million reports of adverse reactions after Covid vaccination

The database of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the US now lists 1,505,275 adverse event reports after Covid vaccination, including adverse reactions reported after administration of the new bivalent boosters. The new statistics are dated up to January 13, 2023.

Including adverse reactions reported after administration of the new bivalent boosters, 6,858,955 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 19,184 reports of adverse reactions up to January 13, 143 reports of death after vaccination, and 194 reports of permanent disability (126 after administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 68 after administration of the Moderna vaccine). A total 69,480 individual-symptom events are listed, but 2,439 reports are described as ‘no adverse event’.

There are 2,923 reports of a product storage error, 1,951 cases of Covid-19, 1,781 reports separately listed as a positive SARS-CoV-2 test, 1,391 reports of the product being incorrectly administered, 1,123 reports of underdosing, and 1,108 separate reports of an incorrect dose being administered.

As of January 18, 2023, 50.6 million people in the US had received a bivalent booster dose.

ALL THE FOLLOWING DATA ARE FROM BOTH COVID VACCINE CATEGORIES COMBINED

There is now a 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 January 13 and in all locations, at 33,746 (16,423 from US states and territories or a location reported as unknown and 17,323 from foreign locations).

This figure includes the 90 reported deaths after administration of the new Pfizer-BioNTech booster and 53 after administration of the new Moderna booster.

According to VAERS, a total 21,319 deaths followed administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, 9,458 followed administration of the Moderna vaccines, and 2,920 followed administration of the Janssen Biotech vaccine. In 219 cases, the name of the vaccine manufacturer was not specified in the report. (There’s a discrepancy between the 33,746 figure and the latter 33,916 total.)

A total 4,055 of the reported deaths occurred on the same day as vaccination, 3,097 occurred the following day, 572 occurred within seven days, and 1,575 occurred within ten to 14 days.

According to Worldometers.info there had been 1,128,500 deaths from Covid-19 in the US as of January 21, 2023.

In an update to its website on January 19, 2023, the CDC said that more than 666 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines had been administered in the US from December 14, 2020, to January 11, 2023, and VAERS had received 18,649 preliminary reports of death (0.0028%) among people who received a Covid-19 vaccine. (The figures given on the CDC website do not include adverse event reports from foreign locations.)

According to the CDC’s Covid data tracker, 667,815,331Covid vaccine doses had been administered in the US as of January 18, 2023.

On VAERS 898,933 reports (up to January 13 and in all locations) relate to adverse events after administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines (4,293,000 individual-symptom events), 510,541 refer to the Moderna vaccines (2,135,829 individual-symptom events), 96,758 refer to the Janssen Biotech vaccine (433,931 individual-symptom events), 225 reports relate to the Novavax vaccine (877 individual-symptom events), and 10,174 relate to an unknown vaccine manufacturer (41,471 individual-symptom events). There’s a discrepancy between the 1,505,275 total and this one (1,516,635).

The total number of reported adverse reactions resulting in permanent disability is put at 62,253. VAERS lists, as of January 13, 44,354 cases after administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, 14,842 after administration of the Moderna vaccines,  3,131 after administration of the Janssen Biotech vaccine, and ten after administration of the Novavax vaccine. In 283 cases, the vaccine manufacturer was not specified. There’s again a discrepancy in the totals.

As of January 13 VAERS lists 11,122 reports of seizures after Covid vaccination. Some other adverse reactions such as generalised tonic-clonic seizure (1,250), seizure-like phenomena (628), and partial seizures (287) are listed separately.

There are 13,280 reports of a pulmonary embolism and 10,312 reports of thrombosis, with separate listings for specific types of thrombosis, such as deep vein thrombosis (8,668), pulmonary thrombosis (1,105), and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (947). There are 196,750 reports of people being diagnosed with Covid-19.

There are 9,054 reports of a cerebrovascular accident, 12,209 reports of sleep disorders, 13,815 reports of herpes zoster (plus 1,687 other herpes zoster reports listed separately, including herpes zoster reactivation), 2,323 reports of blindness, and 3,382 reports of deafness. As of January 13 there were 24,030 reports of tinnitus.

There are also 3,519 reports of spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) listed on VAERS as of January 13 along with 151 reports of stillbirth, 15,504 reports of heavy menstrual bleeding, 4,141 reports of intermenstrual bleeding, 9,157 reports of irregular menstruation, and 4,818 reports of delayed menstruation.

There are 3,174 reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) listed on VAERS as of January 13, along with 6,896 reports of Bell’s palsy, 9,112 reports categorised as facial paralysis, and 1,958 reports of facial paresis.

There are 16,427 reports of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) after Covid vaccination listed in the VAERS data up to January 13, 2023. 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, three cases of chronic myocarditis, three cases of mycotic myocarditis, two cases of bacterial myocarditis, two cases of coxsackie myocarditis, and one case of enterovirus myocarditis.

The VAERS data also includes 10,892 reports of pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart), 636 cases of myopericarditis, 100 cases of pleuropericarditis,  58 cases of viral pericarditis, 36 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 8,771 reports of an anaphylactic reaction after Covid vaccination are listed up to January 13.

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. I’ll be publishing the EudraVigilance date shortly.