evidence: A recent study has sparked another round of headlines claiming that COVID vaccines caused excess deaths. This was accompanied by a predictable outpouring of I-told-you-sos on social media. [...] They studied the years 2020 to 2022 and found that many, but not all, countries did indeed report excess deaths. The authors did not try to explain why these excess deaths occurred, but the suggestion that COVID vaccines could have played a role is clear from their text – and indeed widely interpreted as such by certain newspapers. There is no doubt that a few deaths were associated with the COVID vaccines, but could the vaccination programme explain the large number of excess deaths – 3 million in 47 countries – that have been reported?