De man vmstat (ênfase em negrito adicionada por mim):
SYNOPSIS
vmstat [options] [delay [count]]DESCRIPTION
vmstatreports information about processes, memory, paging, block IO, traps, disks and cpu activity.The first report produced gives averages since the last reboot.
Additional reports give information on a sampling period of length delay. The process and memory reports are instantaneous in either case.
OPTIONS
delayThe delay between updates in seconds. If no delay is specified, only one report is printed with the average values since boot.
countNumber of updates. In absence of count, when delay is defined, default is infinite.[...]