Katie Ashby-Koppens: DEBUNKED - The "14 million lives saved" - Covid vaccine claim falls apart.

What It Means for New Zealand and the Royal Commission Phase 2

Mathematical Fiction Used to Justify Mandates, Misinform Policy, and Silence Critics

For years, Kiwis were told, repeatedly, that COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives. In fact, one number stood above all others: 14.4 million lives saved in 2021 alone.

This was not just any claim, it became the central pillar of the justification for vaccine mandates, border closures, suppression of early treatments, and blanket censorship of scientific dissent.

But there’s just one problem: It wasn’t true.

The Myth That Propped Up a Global Policy

The “14.4 million lives saved” figure comes from a now-infamous 2022 Lancet study by Watson et al, led by UK modeller Neil Ferguson[1] (yes, that Neil Ferguson of “500,000 UK deaths” lockdown infamy).

The study modelled counterfactual scenarios, what might have happened if no one was vaccinated, not actual outcomes.

This figure has now been exposed as mathematical propaganda in three new peer reviewed papers (released in the last month):

1. By academic Raphael Latasterin the Journal of Independent Medicine (2025).[2] His forensic meta-critique exposes the foundations of the Watson model, revealing speculative inputs, inflated assumptions, and a total detachment from real-world data.
2. Coauthored by World Council for Healths’s Dr Plothe who analysed 12 major vaccine modelling studies finding 10 of them over exaggerated the benefits.[3]
3. Stanford University, in collaboration with Italian researchers led by Professor John Ioannidis, one of the most cited medical scientists in the world, has just released a new study that delivers a final blow to that claim that the number saved is more akin to 1 million globally over the four years of the pandemic.[4]

How Did They Get It So Wrong?

Dr. Lataster identifies seven critical flaws in the Watson model. Among them:

1. Assumed constant 90% efficacy, despite real-world data showing rapid waning and even negative effectiveness.
2. Ignored adverse events including myocarditis, pericarditis, and deaths, especially in young people.
3. Used manipulated counting windows to exclude infections in the “partially vaccinated,” inflating effectiveness.
4. Exaggerated infection fatality rates (IFRs), without transparent sourcing.
5. Ignored natural immunity and over-relied on speculative models.
6. Did not stratify by age or life-years saved—most “lives saved” were elderly with fewer years to gain.
7. All-cause mortality was higher in some vaccinated populations.

Most damningly, while their Watson model predicted huge lives saved, real-world mortality tells the opposite story:

• 08 million more people died globally in 2021 than in 2020.
• Excess deaths rose in heavily vaccinated nations, including Australia and New Zealand.
• All-cause mortality in some studies was higher among the vaccinated.

A Second Study Confirms the Misrepresented Modelling

In a second paper, co-authored by World Council for Health researcher Dr. Christof Plothe, analysed 12 major vaccine modelling studies.[5]

The findings:

• 10 of 12 models overstated vaccine benefits.
• One Canadian study claimed 321,077 deaths were averted – even though only 38,783 people died from COVID there.[6]
• None accounted for vaccine injury or waning immunity.
• All ignored risk-benefit by age, grossly misrepresenting benefit for young people.

This includes studies used by the U.S. Centre for Disease Control, World Health Organization, which were likely relied upon by New Zealand’s regulators, who imported the same flawed models into our pandemic response.

Third Study annihilates the number: “Far Fewer Lives Saved Than First Thought”

A brand-new study by Stanford University and Italian researchers led by Professor John Ioannidis[7] found that the actual lives saved over the entire pandemic ~2.5 million worldwide, not 14 million in 2021 alone:

• 90% of those saved were over 60.
• Only 299 lives were saved among under-20s.
• Up to 100,000 doses needed to save one life under age 30.

Professor Ioannidis stated: “I think early estimates were based on many parameters having values that are incompatible with our current understanding.

“In principle, targeting the populations who would get the vast majority of the benefit and letting alone those with questionable risk-benefit and cost-benefit makes a lot of sense.

“Aggressive mandates and the zealotry to vaccinate everyone at all cost were probably a bad idea.”

Dr Lataster has reviewed the Stanford study and suggests that it still suffers from many of the same problems he identified with Watson et al.[8]

What does this mean for New Zealand?

New Zealand comprises just 0.06% of the world’s population. Applying that proportion to Watson et al.’s original claim of 14.4 million lives saved in 2021, the model would imply that New Zealand alone averted 8,640 deaths in a single year, a figure nearly 170 times higher than the 53 COVID-19 deaths actually recorded in 2021.

Using the more credible Stanford estimate of approximately 1 million lives saved globally over the entire pandemic, New Zealand’s proportional share would equate to just 600 lives saved total, and even that likely overstates the benefit, given New Zealand’s lower infection rates, younger demographic profile, and minimal early outbreak exposure.

Yet more than 4.5 million New Zealanders, virtually the entire eligible adult population, were vaccinated under a regime of coercion, mandates, and exclusion from work, education, and community life. Framing the vaccination of 4.5 million people as necessary to save 8,640 lives, or perhaps at most 600, using a novel, experimental gene-based therapy with no long-term safety data is not a defensible public health calculation.

These doses were administered en masse to healthy young people at negligible risk from COVID-19, despite mounting evidence of harm, including serious adverse events such as myocarditis and pericarditis. This was not proportionate. It was not precautionary. And it was not ethical.

Silence in Wellington, Silence in the Media

The implications are explosive. If the 14 million figure collapses, so does the moral and scientific basis for:

• Coercive mandates.
• Censorship of vaccine critics.
• Suppression of early treatment protocols.
• Denial of injury compensation for the vaccine-injured.

New Zealand Needs Accountability

During Phase 2 of the Royal Commission, groups such as Voices for Freedom, NZDSOS, and the New Zealand Health Forum were questioned on whether COVID-19 vaccines had “saved millions of lives.” While the Commission did not directly cite sources, it is reasonable to infer that it was relying on modelling studies such as Watson et al. (2022), or similarly constructed projections.

Incredibly, this line of questioning took place in the same month that three separate peer-reviewed papers were released that directly debunked the “millions saved” figure.

But Watson et al.’s study wasn’t just flawed, it was weaponised. Its projections were used by politicians and health bureaucrats to:

• Justify coercive mandates
• Strip away informed consent
• Enforce the mass uptake of novel gene-based vaccine technologies on millions of New Zealanders

All of this occurred under conditions of provisional approval, with no long-term safety data, and with legal indemnity granted to manufacturers.

The Stakes Are Too High to Ignore

New Zealand must now:

• Withdraw reliance on flawed modelling in pandemic policy and public communication
• Ensure the Royal Commission calibrates its questioning of the political response using accurate, current, and independently verified information
• Investigate excess mortality and vaccine injury trends since 2021, as already called for by multiple experts and community groups
• Properly compensate the vaccine-injured and review all mandates, exclusions, and penalties
• Stop pretending this was ever “about the science”: It was about control—and the data was distorted to serve it.

Our governments forced us into this situation. They took away our freedoms, then dangled them back like prizes, conditional on compliance. They spent over $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds on experimental, provisionally approved gene therapy vaccines, whose long-term safety was unknown, and whose manufacturers bore no liability.

They mandated these products for healthy New Zealanders, including children and young adults at minimal risk from COVID-19, all while silencing medical professionals, punishing dissent, and ignoring mounting evidence of harm.

Now we know: the promised lives saved were wildly overstated. The actual benefit, especially to the young, was non-existent at best. And the harms: physiological, societal, and democratic – are becoming impossible to ignore.

References:
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(22)00320-6/fulltext
[2] https://journalofindependentmedicine.org/articles/v01n02a07/
[3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/393464186_A_rapid_assessment_of_COVID-19_vaccine_averted_mortality_modelling_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic
[4] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2836434?utm_source=chatgpt.com#google_vignette
[5] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/393464186_A_rapid_assessment_of_COVID-19_vaccine_averted_mortality_modelling_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic
[6] https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html
[7] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2836434?utm_source=chatgpt.com#google_vignette
[8] https://x.com/okaythennews/status/1950180452133904853?s=46

Katie Ashby-Koppens is a seasoned civil litigator with over 20 years of experience in New Zealand and Australia. Her expertise spans employment, medico-legal, regulatory disputes, and class actions. This article was sourced HERE