Between 2020 and 2024, COVID-19 vaccines saved an estimated 2.5 million lives worldwide—equivalent to preventing one death for every 5,400 doses given.
A landmark global analysis led by researchers from Università Cattolica and Stanford University reveals that most lives were saved when people were vaccinated before infection, with the largest impact during the Omicron wave and among those aged 60 and over. The team also calculated 14.8 million years of life gained, underscoring vaccines’ immense contribution to protecting the most vulnerable, even with more conservative estimates than earlier studies.
Global Vaccine Impact: Millions of Lives Saved
Between 2020 and 2024, COVID-19 vaccinations are estimated to have prevented 2.533 million deaths worldwide. That means, on average, one life was saved for every 5,400 vaccine doses given. Most of these lives, about 82 percent, were saved when individuals were vaccinated before encountering the virus. The study found that 57 percent of these prevented deaths occurred during the Omicron phase, and 90 percent involved people aged 60 or older. In total, vaccines preserved approximately 14.8 million years of life (equivalent to one year of life saved for every 900 doses administered).
Behind the Breakthrough: The Research Team and Their Global Collaboration
These findings come from a groundbreaking study published in JAMA Health Forum, led by Professor Stefania Boccia, Professor of General and Applied Hygiene at Università Cattolica. She worked alongside Dr. Angelo Maria Pezzullo, a researcher in General and Applied Hygiene, and Dr. Antonio Cristiano, a medical resident in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine. Dr. Pezzullo and Dr. Cristiano also spent time at Stanford University, collaborating with Professor John P.A. Ioannidis, who directs the Meta-Research Innovation Center (METRICS).
Their work was part of the “European network staff eXchange for integrAting precision health in the health Care sysTems–ExACT” project, funded by the European Research Excellence Program RISE project–Marie Sklodowska-Curie and coordinated by Professor Boccia.
A Comprehensive and Unique Study
Professor Boccia and Dr. Pezzullo explain: “Before ours, several studies tried to estimate lives saved by vaccines with different models and in different periods or parts of the world, but this one is the most comprehensive because it is based on worldwide data, it also covers the Omicron period, it also calculates the number of years of life that was saved, and it is based on fewer assumptions about the pandemic trend.”
How the Analysis Was Done
The experts studied worldwide population data, applying a series of statistical methods to figure out who among the people who became ill with COVID did either before or after getting vaccinated, before or after Omicron period, and how many of them died (and at what age). “We compared this data with the estimated data modeled in the absence of COVID vaccination and were then able to calculate the numbers of people who were saved by COVID vaccines and the years of life gained as a result of them,” Dr. Pezzullo explains.
Elderly Benefited Most; Young Least
It also turned out that most of the saved years of life (76%) involved people over 60 years of age, but residents in long-term care facilities contributed only with 2% of the total number. Children and adolescents (0.01% of lives saved and 0.1% of life years saved) and young adults aged 20-29 (0.07% of lives saved and 0.3% of life years saved) contributed very little to the total benefit.
A Conservative but Clear Picture
Professor Boccia concludes: “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. 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.”
Reference: “Global Estimates of Lives and Life-Years Saved by COVID-19 Vaccination During 2020-2024” by John P. A. Ioannidis, Angelo Maria Pezzullo, Antonio Cristiano and Stefania Boccia, 25 July 2025, JAMA Health Forum.
DOI: 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.2223
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17 Comments
This one pegged my BS meter. How can it be true when the survival rates within nations around the world correlate well with the inverse of the COVID vaccine uptake in those countries.
{+_+}
Survival rates from what?
JDow, Your comment has no context and does not point to any supporting data.
No wonder your meter is pegged.
Spot on.
are you kidding ?
I’m really disappointed and appalled that an article of fake science and lies has been allowed on here. It has been established that the mRNA vaccine does not provide protection to the person taking it, it does not prevent the virus from being spread nor does it help cure the virus and that the big pharmas knew that. Fauci ran 3 research projects that showed that covid 2005 was cured by hydroxychloroquine but this was banned from use even though doctors were using it from the start because it worked. Researchers used ivermectin at the beginning of the pandemic and found that worked but then they were forbidden to use it because it was too cheap. Doctors who tried to pass this news on lost their licences and jobs or, in the case of Dr Peter McCulloch, have any published papers pulled from websites even when peer reviewed. As for the 2.5 million lives “saved” more likely dead from cancer, strokes, heart attacks, miscarriages…..
Kindly remove any and all articles promoting all incorrect and damaging misinformation. Stop being a shill of lies.
Either your data sources are flawed, or the article is flawed.
To find out which is easy.
The article quotes publicly available data on deaths.
You say: ” It has been established that the mRNA vaccine does not provide protection to the person taking it” – yet, you have not defined terms (protection from what?) or your data.
You seem like the conspiracy theorist here spreading flawed information.
I’d rather have them publish everything, including this nonsense than have censorship. I agree, the article is crap but do you think they should not publish crap? That’s censorship. Let people read this agitprop.
Wife’s friend was preg. She got the shot for some reason. Miscarried. I personally know 2 teenage girls today who came down with heart problems immediately after the shot. This site publishes everything, some great and some utter nonsense. Just to emphasize and clarify: I figures out how to fake the covid test to negative. I left my state when I was told not to and went to Fla and stayed there, acting normal while my state was demoted to the dark ages. Oh, yes, I’m in my 60s and spent that time going to parties in my state, when I wasn’t in Fla. Parties, in pools, with sometimes hundreds of people, featuring alcohol, drugs and partner swapping, and each and every person I know came out fine, and couldn’t even get covid if they tried. It was created by Fauci, spread by China and used as an anti-populist political tool against Trump. BTW, I work FOR the govt and have for more than 35 years. We all knew that. PS, miss the parties now
Who are we to believe? An alcohol-soaked druggie or the information from health departments of various countries which all pretty much say the same thing?
Good point. Marijuana is legal in NY. So is alcohol. Our state laws allow those items, as well as parties, pools, sex and cooking on grills. Follow me? What’s not codified by law is shutting down a state because some guy in DC who tortures dogs for fun issues something called “guidance.”
Guidance is not law. And Fauci’s guidance was inaccurate in any case. Just as his guidance on HIV spreading between heterosexuals and his guidance that married people use condoms, his guidance on covid was nonsense. Every RN I know immediately saw that only the very ill died from covid, although initially after it was first sent here by China there was a bad strain that appears to have mutated into basically a cold. But in any event, most health departments also tell people not to sleep with infants or get sun tans and they do nothing to detain the stinking homeless who are diseased. They have not credibility. Authority has no credibility except what I give it. America is a nation of individuals. I will do as I please unless you use physical force to stop me, and I may just give it back to you. This is America, do you understand?
Save your propaganda – masks worked better than the vacs AND THEY DON’T WORK AT ALL.
Great, a comment section full of ignorant Trumptards.
Focus your energies on one man. Go ahead. Hatred leads to illness, “scientists say.”
I assume you love your heroes politically. Democrats? Well, JFK and Harry Truman were NRA members, and Eleanor Roosevelt carried a .38. I have a copy of her pistol permit. JFK like to have sex with gorgeous women, like Marilyn Monroe. Harry Truman dropped two A bombs to end WWII. That’s your party.
As a Trumptard I’d like to inform you that your party got taken over by people who cut boys dicks off and think being 300 lbs is sexy and who hate Jews, like me. I can see with my own two eyes who your party has become. If you hate Trump, maybe find someone not senile or drunk to run against him. Oh, wait. Too late
Surely the most reliable data to indicate a vaccine success story is excess mortality trends. The uk Office of National Statistics, the Global burden of disease database and the CDC data are indicating a disastrous response for the vaccines. Modelling got us into this mess I guess they hope modelling will get us out.
I live in the most-vaccinated state in the country during Covid. According to our own health department’s vital statistics reports, our Covid death rates in 2021-2022 were nearly double the rate of 2020 when there was no vaccine. Can anyone cite examples when the death rate of a target disease INCREASED following a vaccination campaign against it?