CLAIM: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly confirmed that at least 118,000 children and young adults have “died suddenly” in the U.S. since the COVID-19 vaccines rolled out.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Excess deaths — the difference between the observed number of deaths and the expected number in a specific period — were higher for those 0 to 44 years old in the U.S. in 2021 and 2022 compared to previous averages. However, the CDC has not attributed this increase to COVID-19 vaccines and experts told The Associated Press that it can likely be attributed to other causes, including more severe variants of the coronavirus. Confirmed reports of deaths caused by vaccination are extremely rare, even with millions of people vaccinated against COVID-19.
THE FACTS: A misleading article spreading widely online this week attempts to link recent child and young adult deaths in the U.S. to COVID-19 vaccines.“CDC quietly confirms at least 118k Children & Young Adults have ‘Died Suddenly’ in the USA since the roll-out of the COVID Vaccines,” reads its headline. The article originally appeared in November on The Exposé, a website that has repeatedly spread COVID-19 misinformation.
A screenshot of the article’s headline was shared in multiple Facebook and Instagram posts. One Instagram post had more than 15,500 likes as of Thursday.
As evidence, the article cites CDC data as published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The intergovernmental organization, which has 38 member countries, including the U.S., promotes economic and sustainable development. As presented by The Exposé, the data shows that there were about 118,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 0-to-44 age group between December 2020 and October 2022, compared to the 2015-2019 average.
The article suggests that these deaths are the result of the COVID-19 vaccines, saying that the “‘mysterious’ sudden rise which has contributed to half a million American children and young adults dying since late 2020, is most likely due to the Covid-19 injections.”
But Brian Tsai, a spokesperson for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, told The Associated Press that the claim misrepresents CDC data.
Tsai said that from the start of 2021 to the 43rd week of 2022, there have been about 124,000 excess deaths in the U.S. among 0- to 44-year-olds compared to the 2015-2019 average. However, he said, there’s no indication this was vaccine related.
This number is higher than the numbers published by OECD because the CDC’s data is now more complete, according to Tsai.
The 124,000 excess deaths break down to about 80,000 excess deaths in 2021 and about 44,000 excess deaths in 2022. Tsai also noted that excess deaths for 2022 are similar to those in 2020, when there were about 46,000.
Confirmed reports of deaths caused by vaccination are extremely rare, even with millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses having been administered in the U.S.
Scott Pauley, a spokesperson for the CDC, told the AP that outside of nine deaths confirmed to be associated with rare blood clots following the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the agency has “not detected any unusual or unexpected patterns for deaths following immunization that would indicate that COVID vaccines are causing or contributing to deaths.”
Instead, Tsai wrote in an email to the AP, likely reasons for excess deaths in this age group since 2020 include “increases in accidental deaths (mainly drug overdoses), suicides, homicides, heart diseases, liver disease, and diabetes.” He said a substantial number of the excess deaths are the result of COVID-19 itself.
A surge in excess deaths among children and young adults in the summer of 2021, for example, corresponded with the delta variant of the coronavirus hitting the U.S., which affected younger people more than previous variants of the virus, Tsai explained.
CDC data from December 2021 indicated that COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the U.S., behind heart disease and cancer. Experts have said drug overdoses also contributed to higher-than-expected death rates in 2021, the AP reported.
OECD did not respond to a request for comment.
Tsai also refuted the headline’s claim that the CDC has “quietly” confirmed data about children and young adults dying “suddenly.” The CDC’s excess death data has long been public, he said, and “there is no way to really determine from the data whether people died suddenly or not.”
Other baseless claims that people “died suddenly” from COVID-19 vaccines have circulated on social media following the release of an online film that made false claims about vaccine deaths and included footage that predated the pandemic.
Spencer Fox, an assistant professor in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Georgia, told the AP that excess deaths are a way to estimate how different weekly death rates in the current year compare to historical averages.
Fox said that normally it requires additional statistical analyses to understand the cause of excess deaths, unless the trends are clear. During the pandemic, he explained, the trends clearly showed that COVID-19 infections were causing excess deaths.
“Excess deaths so obviously increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic that we’re able to, with some level of confidence, say that COVID was causing those excess deaths,” he said.
Nicholas Jewell, a biostatistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, agreed that there is no evidence to support the claim that the vaccines caused the excess deaths.
“It’s likely that a significant fraction of these deaths can be attributed to COVID-19 infections,” he wrote in an email to the AP.
The AP has previously debunked claims misrepresenting mortality data to discredit the COVID-19 vaccines.
The Exposé did not respond to a request for comment.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
