COVID-19 vaccines saved nearly 20 million lives in a year, study says

Key Facts

World June 24, 2022 / 11:20 AM / AP Many parents still reluctant to vaccinate kids Many parents remain reluctant to vaccinate kids against COVID 05:21 Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday.
90-year-old woman becomes first to receive Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in U.K. 03:23 The effort, though marred by persisting inequities, prevented deaths on an unimaginable scale, said Oliver Watson of Imperial College London, who led the new modeling study.
The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom.
An additional 600,000 deaths would have been prevented if the World Health Organization target of 40% vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 had been met, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.