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According to figures from the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), fully vaccinated people are much less likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are not vaccinated or who have received only one dose.
Of a total of 51,281 COVID-19 deaths recorded between January 2 and July 2, 2021, in England, just 640 of these were among vaccinated people. This represents 1.24 % of COVID-19-associated deaths.
It is worth noting that, although these 640 people had been vaccinated, 256 had waited the 14 days after vaccination without receiving a positive PCR. In that sense, what ONS considers to be COVID-19-associated deaths after full immunization is equivalent to 0.49 % of the cases.
However, they were mostly people at very high risk of dying from COVID-19. The median age of the people who died after receiving both doses of vaccine is 84 years, and only 59 of those people were completely healthy: they lacked any comorbidities or critical health conditions prior to infection with the virus.
Thus, deaths following vaccination tend to occur in the most vulnerable, men and people with weakened immune systems, with an average age of 84 years.
The data indicate that, among those who died after two doses, 13% were immunocompromised, 61% were male, and more than 75% were extremely clinically vulnerable.
In other words, only 0.11% of the COVID-19 deaths recorded in the first 6 months of 2021 were healthy people who had already received both doses of the vaccine.
This translates into 99.89% of deaths being prevented by the vaccine in healthy people younger than 84 years of age who have already received both doses. In general, regardless of age and comorbidities, the vaccine prevents death in 98.76% of cases.
Recently, vaccinology specialist and co-creator of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Professor Sarah Gilbert, said that a third dose would be unnecessary since the COVID-19 vaccines provide strong protection against the virus one year after both doses.
