Interrupting vaccination policies can greatly spread SARS-CoV-2 and enhance mortality from COVID-19 disease: the AstraZeneca case for France and Italy

TL;DR

Interrupting AstraZeneca vaccination campaigns in France and Italy significantly increases COVID-19 mortality, outweighing the risks of vaccine side effects, as shown by stochastic risk-benefit analysis.

Contribution

This study provides a quantitative risk-benefit analysis demonstrating the detrimental impact of vaccine suspension on COVID-19 mortality.

Findings

Interruption of vaccination increases COVID-19 deaths.

Vaccine side effects are less deadly than COVID-19 itself.

Risk-benefit analysis favors continued vaccination.

Abstract

Several European countries have suspended the inoculation of the AstraZeneca vaccine out of suspicion of causing deep vein thrombosis. In this letter we report some Fermi estimates performed using a stochastic model aimed at making a risk-benefit analysis of the interruption of the delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine in France and Italy. Our results clearly show that excess deaths due to the interruption of the vaccination campaign injections largely overrun those due to thrombosis even in worst case scenarios of frequency and gravity of the vaccine side effects.