The new official data on deaths by vaccination status in England were released on Tuesday by the ONS and they show the vaccinated are over-represented in all-cause mortality in all age groups for most of 2021 and all of 2022.
The charts showing this, produced by Joel Smalley, are reproduced below. While confounders cannot be excluded with these data, it would also be fair to say that they are hardly indicative of a protective effect, particularly given the healthy vaccinee bias which means vaccinated people are usually healthier on average than unvaccinated people.
I should note that there appear to be some serious issues with the data that need to be addressed. In particular the population estimates seem very low, particularly for the unvaccinated. Linked to this, while all deaths appear to be included, the population data only include those registered on the census. Since the unvaccinated are less likely to be registered on the census, this will artificially increase the death rate in the unvaccinated population.
There are also some missing data which Dr. Clare Craig has pointed out to the ONS and which officials have said they will address. The data have also changed since the last release, with the May 2022 data point that showed parity between vaccinated and unvaccinated death rates now altered. The reason for this is unexplained.
Dr. Sarah Caul from the ONS tweeted out a graph showing the age-standardised mortality rate (per 100,000 person-years) over 2021 and 2022 by vaccination status, split into Covid and non-Covid deaths
Throughout the time series those unvaccinated had a higher age-standardised COVID-19 mortality rate than those who had had any vaccination and those who had had a third dose or booster at least 21 days ago. (6/10) pic.twitter.com/l1oDtjchoD
— Sarah Caul (@SarahCaul_ONS) February 21, 2023
Read More: Vaccinated Over-Represented in All-Cause Deaths, ONS Data Show
