Reuters examined similar claims in October 2022 and found the claims to be false. While vaccinated children in 2021 did have a higher death rate than children dying of COVID during the same time period, this was a result of the UK vaccination policy that prioritized medically at risk children.
Reuters examined the claim in a 19 October 2022 article titled "Fact Check-COVID-19 vaccines not linked to 8,200% increase in child deaths in past year, as claimed in online video".
COVID-19 vaccines have not caused an 8,200% increase in child deaths between 2021 and 2022, as has been claimed in a video posted on social media. That figure “completely misrepresents data”, according to a UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) spokesperson.
The footage, posted on Facebook here, shows a man in military uniform addressing an audience outside a COVID-19 vaccination centre in Windsor that he and other protesters had attempted to close down on Oct. 11.
During a five-minute speech, he claimed (at 1:34): “There is an 8,200% death increase in our children this year. So, from 2021 to 2022 there was an 8,200% death increase in our children. Mine and yours. The vaccines are not safe, and they are not effective.”
While this is not the same source as quoted by OP, the statements are similar enough to be considered equal.
An ONS spokeperson spoke to Reuters via email while writing the article.
“There has not been an 8,200% increase in child deaths between 2021 and 2022,” based on weekly data through early October (here), the spokesperson said. Comparing total deaths over the same period across the last three years shows that “from week 1 to week 39 in 2020, there were 2,419 deaths registered for 0-14-year-olds. Based on weekly data, from week 1 to week 39 in 2021, there were 2,415 deaths registered for 0-14-year-olds. Based on weekly data, from week 1 to week 39, in 2022 there were 2,496 deaths registered for 0-14-year-olds.”
Per data from 2022 and 2020, there has been very little change in death totals amongst 0-14 year olds.
So where does the 8200% increase claim come from? The article goes on to elaborate (emphasis mine).
Addressing the claim in The Exposé about an increase in the risk of death in children who are vaccinated, the spokesperson added that the ONS has “always said mortality rates should be interpreted carefully for children because of the way children at risk were prioritised in the vaccine rollout” and because “rates vary considerably due to the relatively low number of deaths in these age categories”.
Children with underlying health conditions who were most at risk from COVID-19 were first in line to be vaccinated in the UK beginning in late 2021 and early 2022 (here and here).
“Clinically vulnerable children and young people have higher mortality rates than those with no comorbidities, and this explains why vaccinated children have a higher rate of death than those who remained unvaccinated,” the spokesperson said.
However, “there is no evidence of the vaccine having an effect on death rates,” they added, citing tables 12 and 13 on the monthly spreadsheets available at this ONS webpage (here), which illustrate the rarity of deaths linked to COVID-19 vaccination at any age, and only one involving a child in the UK.
In the most recent spreadsheet tally of deaths between March 2020 and August 2022 (here), a total of 54 deaths in all age groups are attributed to “COVID-19 vaccines causing adverse effects in therapeutic use” (table 12), and of these, a single death occurred in the 10-19 age group while there were none among younger children (table 13).
In conclusion:
- Death rates amongst children aged 0-13 in the UK have not changed significantly in the years prior to or after the Vaccine rollout to children in the UK.
- A higher mortality rate amongst children who received the vaccine in 2021 is a result of the UK prioritizing medically at risk children before the general public
- These medically at risk children have a naturally higher chance of death due to existing health problems
- Of the 54 confirmed vaccine complications since the rollout began, only a single person under the age of 20 has been found to have died due to the vaccine, and none under the age of 10.
