640 fully vaccinated people in UK dead from Covid-19 in 6 months

An analysis of deaths involving COVID-19 that occurred between 2 January and 2 July 2021 in England, by vaccination status. It’s a detailed analysis of deaths involving COVID-19 that occurred in fully vaccinated individuals, published by UK Office for National Statistics.

Here are the main points of the analysis:

In England, between 2 January and 2 July 2021, there were 640 deaths occurred in people who were fully vaccinated, which includes people who had been infected before they were vaccinated.
The risk of death involving COVID-19 was consistently lower for people who had received two vaccinations compared to one or no vaccination.
“Breakthrough cases” are where infection has occurred in someone who is fully vaccinated, whereas we define a “breakthrough death” as a death involving COVID-19 that occurred in someone who had received both vaccine doses and had a first positive PCR test at least 14 days after the second vaccination dose; in total, there were 256 breakthrough deaths between 2 January and 2 July 2021.
13.1% of breakthrough deaths occurred in people who were identified as likely to be immunocompromised from hospital episodes or causes of death, compared to 5.4% for other COVID-19 deaths.

Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status

The risk of a new infection following vaccination is highest during the first 21 days after the first vaccination, as shown by analysis of the COVID-19 Infections Survey.

There were 458 deaths involving COVID-19 in people who received their second dose at least 21 days before the date of death.

Table: There were 640 deaths involving COVID-19 of people who had received both vaccination doses

Vaccination status	Deaths involving COVID-19	Non-COVID-19 deaths	COVID-19 deaths as percent of all deaths
All deaths regardless of vaccination status	51,281	214,701	19.3
Unvaccinated	38,964	65,170	37.4
Deaths within 21 days of first dose	4,388	14,265	23.5
Deaths 21 days or more after first dose	7,289	66,533	9.9
Deaths within 21 days of second dose	182	11,470	1.6
Deaths 21 days or more after second dose	458	57,263	0.8

Source: Office for National Statistics – National Immunisation Management Service, NHS Test and Trace

Characteristics of breakthrough deaths

The linked data includes 252 breakthrough deaths and 43,956 total deaths involving COVID-19, 98.4% and 85.7% respectively of all breakthrough and total deaths involving COVID-19 that occurred between 2 January and 2 July 2021.

	Breakthrough deaths	Other deaths involving COVID-19	Non COVID-19 deaths
Median age	84	82	82
Male	154 (61.1%)	22,819 (52.2%)	89,498 (48.5%)
Female	98 (38.9%)	20,885 (47.8%)	94,901 (51.5%)
Clinically extremely vulnerable	193 (76.6%)	32,567 (74.5%)	128,454 (69.7%)
Not clinically extremely vulnerable	59 (23.4%)	11,137 (25.5%)	55,945 (30.3%)
Limited a lot by long-term health problem or disability	80 (31.7%)	12,152 (27.8%)	44,642 (24.2%)
Limited a little by long-term health problem or disability	80 (31.7%)	12,604 (28.8%)	50,817 (27.6%)
Not limited by long-term health problem or disability	92 (36.5%)	18,948 (43.4%)	88,940 (48.2%)
Immunocompromised	33 (13.1%)	2,360 (5.4%)	18,049 (9.8%)
Not immunocompromised	219 (86.9%)	41,344 (94.6%)	166,350 (90.2%)

Source: Office for National Statistics – Public Health Data Asset, National Immunisation Management Service, NHS Test and Trace

The median age for breakthrough deaths was 84 and 61.1% of the deaths occurred in males, despite there being more elderly women than men, and therefore initially more fully vaccinated women who could experience a breakthrough death. For all other deaths involving COVID-19 occurring between 2 January and 2 July 2021 in the PHDA dataset, the median age was 82 and 52.2% were male.
13.1% of the breakthrough deaths occurred in people who were immunocompromised, compared to 5.4% for other deaths involving COVID-19.
A greater proportion of breakthrough deaths occurred in those who were clinically extremely vulnerable (76.6%, 193 deaths), than other COVID-19 deaths (74.5%, 32,567 deaths) or non-COVID-19 deaths (69.7%, 128,454 deaths).
A similar trend is observed for disability and long-term health problem status, with proportions of deaths among people self-reporting that they are “limited a lot” on the 2011 Census as 31.7%, 27.8% and 24.2% for breakthrough deaths, other deaths involving COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 deaths respectively.

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