A German study has renewed debate over the long-term impact of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns after finding the country’s highest level of excess mortality occurred in 2022, following the mass rollout of mRNA ‘vaccines’ the previous year.
The research, led by Martin Sauter and published as a preprint on medRxiv, analysed national mortality figures from 2020 to 2023 and found excess deaths rose sharply after Germany’s vaccination campaign reached most of the population.
Researchers estimated 22,410 excess deaths in 2020, increasing to 49,197 in 2021 before surging to 80,523 in 2022. The figure then fell to 31,060 in 2023. The mortality peak occurred after Germany’s mass vaccination programme was largely completed, with around 70 per cent of the population fully vaccinated by the end of 2021.
The study found excess mortality closely tracked COVID-19 waves throughout the pandemic. However, it also identified a growing discrepancy between excess deaths and officially recorded COVID-19 fatalities. In 2022, Germany recorded approximately 80,523 excess deaths but only 48,701 reported COVID-19 deaths, leaving tens of thousands of additional deaths unexplained by official pandemic statistics.
That gap has prompted calls for a more thorough examination of what may have contributed to elevated mortality levels. The researchers said potential explanations include ongoing COVID-19 infections, post-COVID complications, delayed healthcare, influenza outbreaks, demographic changes and possible vaccine-related effects.
While the study cannot determine which factors were responsible, it argues that COVID vaccine effects should not be excluded from further investigation. The analysis did not include individual vaccination records, cause-of-death data or medical histories.
The paper notes that while the timing alone does not establish causation, nevertheless, researchers argue that the persistence of excess deaths well beyond the initial pandemic waves, and their rise above officially reported COVID-19 fatalities, warrants closer scrutiny.
The strongest statistical relationship identified in the study remained between excess mortality and COVID-19 activity, including virus levels detected in wastewater surveillance. However, the authors conclude that important questions remain unanswered about why excess mortality continued at elevated levels during the post-vaccination period.
The study calls for comprehensive investigations combining death records, vaccination histories, healthcare data and cause-of-death information to determine the drivers of Germany’s excess mortality and whether vaccine-related effects played any role alongside other contributing factors.
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