A Comparative Analysis of the Risk and Odds of Death from COVID-19 Vaccination and COVID-19 Infection in Cameroon

Abstract

Like any vaccine, COVID-19 vaccines can cause side effects, most of which are mild or moderate and go away within a few days on their own. Results of clinical trials however show that more serious or long-lasting side effects are possible. This work aims at comparing the risk of dying from COVID-19 vaccination with dying from COVID-19 infection. It made use of secondary data from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Worldometer. Percentages, relative risk, and odds ratios were used to analyze the results. The results showed that 0.0017% deaths were attributed to COVID-19 vaccination and 0.0046% death to COVID-19 infection. The relative risk and odds ratio of dying from COVID-19 vaccination and infection was 0.38 and 0.137 respectively. Both figures are far less than 1 indicating that the risk and odd of dying are by far lower among people vaccinated (cases) than amongst none vaccinated people (control). The results equally showed that COVID-19 infections also led to large treatment costs for the country and individuals leading to economic depression and enormous consequences in the country and the world at large. This study, therefore, concludes that the risk of dying from COVID-19 vaccination is about 3 times lower than dying from COVID-19 infection especially amongst elderly people. This work thus recommends massive COVID-19 vaccination especially for the elderly who are most likely to die from COVID-19 infection and less likely to die from the side effect of the COVID-19 vaccines.