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.
Not all VAERS reports are created equal. Understanding the spectrum of outcomes — from mild reactions to serious events — provides essential context for interpreting the data.
Of 1,983,260 total VAERS reports, the outcomes break down as:
Note that categories are not mutually exclusive — a single report may mention death, hospitalization, and disability. The majority of VAERS reports describe non-serious events like injection site reactions, headaches, and fatigue.
Some vaccines have higher serious outcome rates than others, but this must be interpreted carefully. Vaccines given to sicker populations (e.g., pneumococcal vaccines given to elderly with comorbidities) will naturally have higher serious outcome rates due to the underlying health of recipients.
COVID-19 vaccines, despite their large total numbers, have severity rates in line with many other widely-administered vaccines when adjusted for the demographics of their recipients.
The vast majority of VAERS reports describe expected, mild reactions: injection site pain, fever, fatigue, headache, and muscle aches. These are signs of the immune system responding to vaccination and are generally self-limiting. VAERS captures these alongside serious events, which can make the database appear more alarming than warranted when viewed without context.
As VAERS reporting normalizes following the COVID-19 pandemic surge, the data landscape for serious outcome patterns is shifting. Annual VAERS reports in 2025-2026 have returned to the 35,000-45,000 range typical of the pre-pandemic era (2015-2019), making year-over-year comparisons more meaningful again.
The HHS administration has signaled increased focus on vaccine safety data analysis, including the development of AI-powered tools for pattern detection in VAERS reports. While these tools are still under development, they represent a potential evolution in how adverse event data is analyzed and interpreted.
New vaccines entering the market — including RSV vaccines for older adults and pregnant women, updated COVID-19 formulations, and potential H5N1 avian flu vaccines — continue to add new data streams to VAERS. Each new vaccine type provides additional context for understanding serious outcome patterns across the full spectrum of vaccine safety surveillance.
This analysis is based entirely on VAERS passive surveillance data, which carries important limitations that must be understood:
For these reasons, VAERS data is best used for signal detection — identifying potential safety concerns that warrant further investigation — rather than for definitive risk assessment. When VAERS surfaces a potential signal, it is investigated using more rigorous systems like the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) and controlled epidemiological studies.
All data on VaccineWatch comes from the official VAERS public-use datasets published by the CDC and FDA. Our current dataset covers reports from 1990 through early 2026. We process the raw data without filtering or editorializing — every metric is a transparent aggregation of official government data.
As VAERS reporting normalizes following the COVID-19 pandemic surge, the data landscape for serious outcome patterns is shifting. Annual VAERS reports in 2025-2026 have returned to the 35,000-45,000 range typical of the pre-pandemic era (2015-2019), making year-over-year comparisons more meaningful again.
The HHS administration has signaled increased focus on vaccine safety data analysis, including the development of AI-powered tools for pattern detection in VAERS reports. While these tools are still under development, they represent a potential evolution in how adverse event data is analyzed and interpreted.
New vaccines entering the market — including RSV vaccines for older adults and pregnant women, updated COVID-19 formulations, and potential H5N1 avian flu vaccines — continue to add new data streams to VAERS. Each new vaccine type provides additional context for understanding serious outcome patterns across the full spectrum of vaccine safety surveillance.
This analysis is based entirely on VAERS passive surveillance data, which carries important limitations that must be understood:
For these reasons, VAERS data is best used for signal detection — identifying potential safety concerns that warrant further investigation — rather than for definitive risk assessment. When VAERS surfaces a potential signal, it is investigated using more rigorous systems like the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) and controlled epidemiological studies.
All data on VaccineWatch comes from the official VAERS public-use datasets published by the CDC and FDA. Our current dataset covers reports from 1990 through early 2026. We process the raw data without filtering or editorializing — every metric is a transparent aggregation of official government data.