This is considerably more difficult to calculate than the number of deaths, for several reasons. In Denis Rancourt’s calculation of the number of deaths from COVID-19 vaccines, which we refer to here, he and his research team have based their calculations on official statistics of all deceased and vaccinated people in 17 countries in the Southern Hemisphere. They have not used reports of suspected side effects in different countries. This is a wise choice, as pre-pandemic studies of, for example, the VAERS side effect system in the USA show a reporting rate of less than 1%, and the two studies from the 2000s regarding the reporting of side effects to the Swedish Medical Products Agency show a reporting rate of about 1%.

To calculate serious side effects, we are referred to the reporting of side effects to authorities. The reporting rate is thus only about 1 percent, and moreover, the measure of serious side effect is much more ambiguous than the absolute measure of death.

It becomes a rather rough estimate if we are to calculate the number of people who have suffered serious side effects worldwide. We have made a calculation, based on the number of suspected serious side effects in Sweden after almost all (98.5%) of the 105,216 suspected side effects reported up to and including November 2, 2023, have been processed by the Medical Products Agency. Of these, 13,022 are assessed as serious (Swedish Medical Products Agency website).

If we assume a much higher reporting rate for COVID-19 vaccines than what studies on reporting frequency of side effects before the pandemic showed, 5% or 10%, then 260,044 or 130,022 people have suffered serious side effects from COVID-19 vaccines in the Swedish population of 10,545,300 people (July 1, 2023). This results in 1 serious side effect per 40.6 or 81.1 people.

The world’s population is difficult to calculate exactly, but was 8 billion according to the UN on November 15, 2022 (UNRIC website). Sweden is a socioeconomically wealthy country with the 10th highest expected average life expectancy in the world (Life Expectancy website). The frequency of side effects is likely higher in the rest of the world. If we base our calculations on the figures we have obtained from the analysis of Sweden, we probably get a lower measure of the number of people who have suffered serious side effects worldwide.

The result is that if 5% or 10% of the side effects are reported, 98.6-197.3 million people have suffered serious side effects.

Conclusion: Our assessment is that 100-200 million people worldwide have suffered serious side effects from COVID-19 vaccines. This figure is likely an underestimate.”