How many people have died from getting the covid vaccine
Executive summary
There is no single, verifiable global tally of people who have died as a direct and proven result of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine; high-quality population studies and health agencies report no signal of increased all-cause mortality after vaccination, while a disputed internal FDA memo claims at least 10 child deaths possibly linked to COVID shots but provides little public evidence [1] [2] [3] [4]. The best available peer-reviewed and large-cohort analyses show vaccinated groups had equal or lower risks of death than unvaccinated groups, and experts caution that spontaneous reports to systems like VAERS cannot by themselves establish causation [1] [2] [4] [5].
1. What the reporting actually says about confirmed vaccine-caused deaths
Rigorous, peer-reviewed population research from France covering millions of adults found no increase in deaths after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination and in fact reported a 25% lower all-cause mortality among vaccinated adults over four years, a result echoed in summaries of large-cohort analyses that found vaccinated people were less likely to die from cancer, heart disease, accidental injury or other major categories [2] [1]. Stanford investigators described a plausible biological mechanism for rare vaccine-associated myocarditis and acknowledged that severe myocarditis can be fatal in isolated cases, but emphasized COVID-19 infection is roughly ten times more likely to cause myocarditis than vaccination [6]. Public-health agencies such as the CDC continue to recommend updated vaccines to prevent severe illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19 [7].
2. The contested FDA memo and the “at least 10 children” headline
Beginning in late 2025, an internal memo from the director of the FDA’s vaccine division asserted that agency reviewers found “no fewer than 10” child deaths “after and because of” COVID vaccination, a claim that was widely reported by outlets including NBC, CNN, STAT and The Guardian; those reports note the memo did not include detailed case data, timelines or peer-reviewed analysis, and outside experts called the conclusion extraordinary and unproven based on the public record [3] [8] [4] [9]. Several critics and former regulators argued the memo relied on VAERS-derived signals and internal agency reviews that have not been released for independent scrutiny; they warned that VAERS is an unverified, voluntary reporting system that cannot by itself determine causation [4] [5].
3. How surveillance systems and studies differ—and why counts diverge
Spontaneous reporting systems like VAERS capture unverified events that occur after vaccination and are intended as hypothesis-generating surveillance, not definitive proof that the vaccine caused a death; multiple news reports flagged that the FDA memo’s claims appear to stem from such signal-detection work rather than published causal studies [4] [5]. By contrast, large cohort studies that link vaccination records with mortality data and adjust for confounders have found no excess mortality after mRNA vaccination and, in some analyses, lower all-cause mortality among the vaccinated—findings that argue against substantial numbers of vaccine-caused deaths at a population level [1] [2].
4. Competing narratives, agendas and what remains unknown
The public debate is polarized: some officials within the FDA have signaled concern and proposed regulatory responses, while many outside experts and former regulators characterize the memo as premature or misleading without transparent data, and advocacy outlets and commentators on both sides have incentives to amplify dramatic conclusions or to downplay them [3] [4] [10]. What cannot be answered from the provided reporting is a definitive, audited global count of deaths proven to be directly caused by COVID-19 vaccines; the available high-quality evidence indicates no signal of widespread vaccine-caused mortality, while isolated, rare fatal outcomes—if any—would require case-by-case adjudication and publication to confirm causality [1] [2] [4].