Fact Check-Graph showing England’s COVID-19 death statistics misrepresents impact of vaccines

ocial media users are sharing a graph which shows the number of COVID-19 deaths by vaccination status in England between April 1 and May 31. It reveals that 94% of deaths in that period were among those who are vaccinated. However, this statistic on its own is misleading as it fails to acknowledge the nation’s vaccination rate. The graph also originates from a blog that has previously been found by Reuters Fact Check to have shared health misinformation.

One Facebook user, whose post has been interacted with dozens of times, uploaded a screenshot of the graph (here) along with the caption: “Whilst in the UK the population were distracted by Boris resigning, the UK Gov. quietly published a report confirming that the vaccinated population as a whole accounted for 94% of all Covid-19 deaths in April and May 2022.”

The graph appears on a website (here) that has been subject to several Reuters fact-checks (here and here). The blog’s authors misrepresent data to undermine the impact of COVID-19 vaccines. Reuters has published numerous fact-checks on this technique (here and here).

Data used in the graph comes from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It reveals that, during April and May of this year, 4,647 vaccinated people died with COVID-19, compared to 288 unvaccinated people – or roughly 94% and 6% respectively.

However, as previously reported by Reuters Fact Check, it is misleading to claim these figures show vaccinated individuals are more likely to die with COVID-19 than the unvaccinated.

A spokesperson for the Office for National Statistics told Reuters via email: “Looking at the proportion of deaths among the fully vaccinated without accounting for the vaccination rate is highly misleading. For instance, if everyone were vaccinated, 100% of people would die vaccinated.”

Echoing this, Professor of Biostatistics Elizabeth Williamson told Reuters via email that the “graph in no way indicated a negative vaccine effectiveness”.

She explained: “In a world where most people are vaccinated… we would expect to see the proportion of vaccinated people who die from COVID-19 to be lower than the proportion of unvaccinated people who die from COVID-19. At the same time, we would expect the number of vaccinated people dying from COVID-19 to be higher than unvaccinated, simply because there are so many more vaccinated people... In addition, those at the highest risk are also the most likely to be vaccinated, exacerbating this phenomenon.”

The UKHSA also previously told Reuters (here) that, given vaccine uptake levels in England are very high, it is expected that a large proportion of cases and deaths would occur in vaccinated individuals, even with a highly effective vaccine, because a larger proportion of the population are vaccinated than unvaccinated.

Dr Shamaila Anwar, science communicator at Team Halo (teamhalo.org/), previously told Reuters: “It is important to understand the whole context to avoid misunderstanding data.”

She acknowledged the importance of accounting for the demographics of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, especially as Britain’s inoculation programme has prioritised those who are older or clinically vulnerable.