Vaccines prevented over 10,000 deaths in UK adults

LONDON

Coronavirus vaccines have prevented over 10,000 deaths in older adults in the UK since its rollout began, new analysis shows.

The study, undertaken by Public Health England (PHE) and published Friday, revealed that the UK’s vaccination program prevented 10,400 deaths in adults aged 60 and over in England from December 2020 when it began to the end of March and an additional 4,300 deaths prior to this date.

“PHE estimates that around 10,400 deaths were prevented to the end of March – 9,100 in those aged 80 and over, 1,200 in those aged 70 to 79 and 100 in those aged 60 to 69,” the health body said in a statement.

“This analysis takes into account the direct effects of vaccines, there is now increasing evidence that vaccines help to reduce transmission, therefore it is likely that an even higher number of deaths will have been prevented by the vaccination programme,” PHE added.

The analysis conducted by PHE compared the observed number of deaths with the number of predicted deaths in the future. The study also allowed 31 days for the vaccine to take real effect, with expected deaths estimated using real-world data on the effectiveness of the jabs.

“It’s fantastic to see the impact our pioneering vaccination programme is already having, with over 10,000 lives saved in a short space of time,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in a statement.

“That’s more than 10,000 families who haven’t suffered the loss of a loved one. The science is clear: vaccines save lives. All 3 of our approved vaccines have been deemed safe and effective by our world class independent medicines regulator,” Hancock said.

On Friday 3,150 people had a confirmed positive test of the virus adding this week’s total to 19,804. This represents a 32.2% decrease in comparison to the last seven days.


Sixty deaths were reported within 28 days of testing positive for the virus on Friday. Between April 3 and 9, there were 224 deaths within 28 days of testing. This shows a 25.8% decrease in comparison to the previous week.

Some 31.9 million people had been administered their first dose of the vaccine by the end of April 8 with 6.5 million people now having received the second. Vaccines are currently administered in 2 doses 21 days apart.

Thursday now holds the record number of people fully vaccinated in UK in the last 24-hour period. On Wednesday, a record 545,511 people received both a first and second dose vaccine.

The latest R range for the UK stands at 0.8-1.0, with the current growth rate at -4% to 0% per day. The R number is a mechanism used to rate the virus’s ability to spread, with R being the number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to.