Senator RENNICK: Have you done a correlation between the date of death and the date of vaccination? It’s a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Dr Skerritt: For the cases where there are deaths reported we do look at the date of vaccination. We don’t see a correlation— Senator RENNICK: Can you please provide a copy of those dates of deaths and dates of vaccination. Dr Skerritt: We’ll provide that.

Question Number: 110 PDR Number: SQ22-000473 Date Submitted: 10/11/2022 Department or Body: Department of Health Large scale vaccination means that some people will experience a new illness or die within a few days or weeks of vaccination. This is usually coincidental, rather than being caused by the vaccine. As the number of people being vaccinated has increased, so has the reporting of fatal events with a temporal association to vaccination. Review of these individual reports and patterns of reporting does not suggest that the vaccines played a role in the vast majority of these deaths. • The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) reviews all adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination where a fatal outcome is reported. This review is designed to assess whether the medical conditions that caused death represent an emerging safety concern with the vaccine. For each report the TGA receives, a team of staff, including doctors and nurses, consider the strength of the evidence for a link between vaccination and the condition that caused the death. The team may request more information from health authorities and coroners. • Since the beginning of the vaccine rollout to 13 November 2022, approximately 64 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Australia. o Amongst these vaccinations, the TGA has received and reviewed 944 reports of adverse events, 14 of which where the cause of death was linked to vaccination. o The 14 deaths likely to be related to vaccination occurred in people aged 21 -81 years old. o There have been no deaths in children or adolescents determined to be linked to COVID-19 vaccination. • Vaccination against COVID-19 is the most effective way to reduce deaths and severe illness from infection. The protective benefits of vaccination far outweigh the potential risks. • Based on data in the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS), in jurisdictions with high completeness of vaccination status among COVID-19 associated deaths, the proportion of cases who have died is higher among non-vaccinated cases than fully vaccinated cases. This emphasises the continued importance of vaccination for preventing severe illness. o In cases with an illness onset between 15 December 2021 and 4 September 2022, the proportion of cases who have died is more than 22 times as high in unvaccinated compared to fully vaccinated people aged 12- 49 years, over 32 times as high in people aged 50 to 69 years and over 14 times as high in people aged 70 and over (Table 1).