COVID Vaccines Saved More Than 2.5 Million Lives, Mostly Seniors

Key TakeawaysCOVID vaccines saved more than 2.5 million lives worldwideFully 90% of lives saved were among people 60 and olderMost lives were saved by protecting against the virulent Omicron strain.MONDAY, July 28, 2025 (HealthDay News) — More than 2.5 million deaths were prevented worldwide by the cutting-edge vaccines developed for COVID-19, mainly among seniors, a new analysis says.Essentially, one death was averted for every 5,400 doses administered between the introduction of the vaccines up to October 2024, researchers reported July 25 in JAMA Health Forum.About 90% of the lives saved were among people 60 and older, with children and young adults receiving the least benefit from the jabs, researchers found.“These estimates are substantially more conservative than previous calculations that focused mainly on the first year of vaccination, but clearly demonstrate an important overall benefit from COVID-19 vaccination over the period 2020-2024,” senior researcher Stefania Boccia, director of life sciences and public health at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, said in a news release.“Most of the benefits, in terms of lives and life-years saved, have been secured for a portion of the global population who is typically more fragile, the elderly,” she added.For the new study, researchers analyzed worldwide population data to figure out how vaccination affected people who fell ill with COVID.The team also assessed how many lives were saved by vaccines before and after the Omicron period, when the most virulent variant of COVID swept the world.Results show that the most lives were saved during Omicron, about 57% of total lives saved.About 82% of lives saved were among people who got vaccinated prior to their infection with COVID, researchers said.Middle-aged adults and seniors 60 and older received the most protection from vaccination, with children and teens representing 0.01% of lives saved and young adults 20 to 29 representing 0.07% of lives saved, results show.These results indicate the U.S. response to the COVID pandemic was off-base when it came to children, Dr. Monica Gandhi wrote in an accompanying editorial. Gandhi is associate division chief of HIV, infectious diseases and global medicine at the University of California-San Francisco.“Both the importance of vaccines for older individuals and the fact that children were at low risk of severe complications of COVID-19 were facts that were known from very early on in the pandemic,” she wrote.“Vaccines save lives and the only way to get through this pandemic was always immunity,” Gandhi continued. “It is much safer to provide immunity to an older person through a vaccine than through natural infection.”U.S. decisions to keep schools closed and promote vaccinations for children weren’t necessary, given these estimates, she wrote.“At this point, a risk-based vaccination approach to boosters (with recommendations for older individuals as verified by this report) should help increase the trust in public health,” Gandhi concluded.More informationThe Mayo Clinic has more on COVID-19 vaccines.SOURCES: JAMA Health Forum, July 25, 2025; Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, news release, July 25, 2025 .What This Means For YouAsk your doctor if you need a COVID-19 vaccine..Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter

COVID Vaccines Saved More Than 2.5 Million Lives, Mostly Seniors

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