The reported numbers of Covid‐19 cases and deaths were compared for 18 countries (14 in Western Europe, plus Australia, Brazil, Israel and the USA) to assess the effect of historic and current national BCG immunizations. In view of the high death rate for Covid‐19 patients over 70 years of age, and given the fact that BCG vaccination is typically given early in life, we compared countries that had introduced BCG in the 1950s with those that had not. No effect on Covid‐19 case fatality rate (CFR) or number of deaths per population could be demonstrated. Since some countries test for Covid‐19 more than others, the effect of tests performed per million population on reported deaths per million was also assessed, but again did not demonstrate an effect of BCG vaccination in the 1950s. Whether countries had never used the vaccine, had historically used it but since ceased to do so, or were presently vaccinating with BCG did not correlate with national total number of deaths or CFR. We conclude that there is currently no evidence for a beneficial effect of BCG vaccination on Covid‐19 reported cases or fatalities.

中文翻译：

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根据国家报告的数据，在生命早期接种 BCG 疫苗不会改善老年人口的 COVID-19 结果

比较了 18 个国家（西欧 14 个，加上澳大利亚、巴西、以色列和美国）报告的 Covid-19 病例和死亡人数，以评估历史和当前国家 BCG 免疫接种的效果。鉴于 70 岁以上 Covid-19 患者的高死亡率，以及通常在生命早期接种 BCG 疫苗这一事实，我们将 1950 年代引入 BCG 的国家与未引入 BCG 的国家进行了比较。无法证明对 Covid-19 病死率 (CFR) 或每个人口的死亡人数有影响。由于一些国家对 Covid-19 的检测比其他国家多，因此还评估了每百万人口进行的检测对每百万报告死亡人数的影响，但同样没有证明 1950 年代 BCG 疫苗接种的影响。无论国家是否从未使用过该疫苗，历史上使用过它但后来停止使用，或者目前正在接种 BCG 与全国死亡总数或病死率无关。我们的结论是，目前没有证据表明 BCG 疫苗接种对 Covid-19 报告的病例或死亡有有益影响。