Important: VAERS reports alone cannot determine if a vaccine caused an adverse event. Reports may contain incomplete, inaccurate, or unverified information. Correlation does not equal causation.
The two most widely administered vaccines in the U.S. have vastly different VAERS profiles. But the numbers alone don't tell the full story.
COVID-19 vaccines have 1,164,334 VAERS reports compared to 251,174 for influenza vaccines. That's a 5x difference. But this comparison requires context:
The death report rate for COVID-19 vaccines is 2.32% of reports, compared to 0.87% for influenza. The hospitalization rate shows a similar pattern: COVID at 10.9% vs flu at 6.3%.
These differences are largely explained by demographics. COVID-19 vaccines were prioritized for the elderly and those with comorbidities — groups with inherently higher mortality and hospitalization rates. Flu vaccines are distributed more evenly across age groups.
A fair safety comparison would need: age-adjusted rates per million doses, stratified by risk factors, with background rate comparisons. VAERS provides none of these. For rigorous safety analysis, researchers use linked databases like the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD).