Getting fully vaccinated massively reduces your chance of dying from COVID-19, a new real-world study suggests

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Getting fully vaccinated massively reduces your chance of dying from COVID-19, a new real-world study suggests
A NHS vaccinator prepares to administer the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine to a member of public at a vaccination centre in London. Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
  • COVID-19 accounted for 0.8% of deaths among fully vaccinated people in England, data shows.
  • In unvaccinated people, COVID-19 accounted for 37% of deaths in the same period.
  • The data is more evidence that vaccines significantly reduce the chance of dying from COVID-19.
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Getting a COVID-19 vaccine significantly reduces the chance of dying from the coronavirus, real-world data from England suggests.

Figures from the UK's Office of National Statistics (ONS) released Monday found that 0.8% of deaths in fully-vaccinated people were linked to COVID-19 between January and July. These figures covered people who died 21 or more days after the second dose.

For comparison, roughly 37% of deaths in unvaccinated people "involved COVID-19" during the same time period, the data showed.

In total, 57,263 fully vaccinated people in England died at least 21 days after their second vaccine dose, and just 458 deaths "involved" COVID-19. Over the same period, there were 38,964 COVID-19-related deaths in unvaccinated people.

Professor Kevin McConway, professor of applied statistics at the Open University, said in a statement to the Science Media Center on Monday that the data showed vaccines were effective at preventing death from COVID-19, but that they weren't "perfect."

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"Some people do still die of COVID-19 even though they are fully vaccinated," he said. "No vaccine is 100% effective," he said, adding that it was important to get both doses.

The ONS data came from census and family doctor health records, considered to be representative of 79% of people aged 10 or older living in England. It didn't specifically look at variants.

The highly infectious Delta, which can partially avoid the immune response, became dominant in the UK in June.

McConway said the data was evidence that vaccinated people had less chance of dying from COVID-19 than unvaccinated people, but that it couldn't be used to determine vaccine effectiveness. The population in the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups could differ in important ways - high-risk groups were prioritized for vaccines, for example, he said.

US data released on Friday showed vaccinated Americans were 11 times less likely than unvaccinated Americans to die from COVID-19.

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