Andy Rain/EPA Think of it as ball-bearing rain Currently, infections are highest in the youngest and lower in older age groups.ĬOVID infections are currently highest in young people. The risk of infection is not the same for all age groups. There are caveats to that simple calculation. Given the same risk of infection, we would still expect to see more double-vaccinated 70-year-olds die from COVID than unvaccinated 35-year-olds. However, the 20-fold decrease in risk afforded by the vaccine isn’t enough to offset the 32-fold increase in underlying risk of death of an 70-year-old over a 35-year-old. Even conservatively assuming the vaccines are no more effective at preventing death than hospitalisation (actually they are likely to be more effective at preventing death) this means the risk of death for double vaccinated people has been cut to less than one-twentieth of the value for unvaccinated people with the same underlying risk profile. PHE data suggests that being double vaccinated reduces the risk of being hospitalised with the now-dominant delta variant by around 96%. This dramatic variation of the risk profile with age means that even excellent vaccines don’t reduce the risk of death for older people to below the risk for some younger demographics. An unvaccinated 70-year-old might be 32 times more likely to die of COVID than an unvaccinated 35-year-old. The 35-year difference between a 35-year-old and a 70-year-old means the risk of death between the two patients has doubled five times – equivalently it has increased by a factor of 32. The risk of dying from COVID doubles roughly every seven years older a patient is. That doesn’t mean vaccines aren’t effective at reducing death. All of these people will be fully vaccinated – 100%. Some people who get infected with COVID will still die. Here’s a simple thought experiment: imagine everyone is now fully vaccinated with COVID vaccines – which are excellent but can’t save all lives. At first glance, this may seem alarming, but it is exactly as would be expected. The report shows that 163 of the 257 people (63.4%) who died of the delta variant within 28 days of a positive COVID test between February 1 and June 21, had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

More vaccinated people are dying of COVID than unvaccinated people, according to a recent report from Public Health England (PHE).

Recent deaths