There would have been approximately 80% fewer COVID-19 deaths in the United States by March 29, 2020, if the country had employed mandatory BCG vaccination since at least 2000, according to the new research. ...snip... For each country, the researchers focused on a 30-day period after the first 100 confirmed cases or the first death.
Provided any national differences in reporting remained stable during this period, say the scientists, this should eliminate the effect of this bias on the data.
In their analysis, the scientists also tried to account for other factors that could have affected the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in different countries. These included the median age of populations, population size and density, and gross domestic product, or GDP, per capita.
They found that having mandatory BCG vaccination significantly “flattened the curve” of the initial spread of COVID-19 throughout the populations studied.
