Misleading: COVID-19 vaccine related deaths in Taiwan are higher than those due to the virus.

By: Nikita Kochhar
December 9 2021

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The report's data doesn't include deaths explicitly due to vaccines. Autopsies confirmed that most people died due to preexisting conditions.A claim on social media states that more people died due to the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines in Taiwan than the virus itself. It stemmed from a report carried by New Tang Dynasty television on October 13, 2021. The report mentioned the deaths among vaccinated against Coronavirus and insinuated vaccines are more harmful. Quoting Taiwan's health authorities, it added that as of October 11, the deaths after vaccination reached 865, while deaths from the virus were 845. The claim is misleading. The report carries a screenshot from Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control, which it claims shows 652 COVID-19 deaths after the AstraZeneca vaccine; 184 after the Moderna vaccine; 26 after Taiwan's domestically developed Medigen vaccine; and three after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. According to Statista, as of October 11, 16,305 confirmed Coronavirus cases, and 846 deaths were registered in Taiwan. The numbers mentioned in the television report come from a system set up by Taiwan's Center for Disease Control (CDC), which uses data reported by the country's Vaccine Adverse Event Notification System (VAERS). However, the VAERS data doesn't mention the deaths explicitly due to COVID-19 vaccines. According to the CDC, "The reported events occurred after vaccination, but that does not indicate that vaccines caused them. The number of adverse event notifications alone cannot explain or be used to conclude the existence, severity, frequency or incidence rate of vaccine-related problems, and they should be explained in the context of other scientific information." According to Polygraph.info, autopsies of vaccinated people have shown that the majority of the people died due to chronic diseases or preexisting conditions. Moreover, the number of people reported to have allegedly died due to vaccines is marginal compared to number of people vaccinated. According to a report in Polygraph.info, out of the country's 23.6 million citizens, 15.4 million (65 percent of the total population) had received at least one dose. Also, around 6 million (25 percent) received both doses. If the claim made in the report were valid, then the number of post-vaccination deaths reported in VAERS should have far exceeded the number of deaths from COVID-19. Taiwan's swift pandemic response and public health system can be credited for its relatively low infection rate and death count. However, in late April, the country witnessed a spike in cases partly due to vaccine shortages. Additionally, according to a report by the U.S. CDC, unvaccinated people were 11 times more likely to die from the virus than the vaccinated. Thus, it's clear that the New Tang Dynasty has misrepresented the data to show that all the vaccinated people who died succumbed to the jab's side effects. The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19, including symptoms, prevention, and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organization or your national healthcare authority.