Thread by @charles_gaba

THREAD: An honest question for stats experts who have criticized me for not using age-adjustment in this post (I discuss it, but I don't highlight it in the graphs or the headline): 1/
acasignups.net/21/12/30/nchs-…

The criticism boils down to this: The main reason White Americans have been dying of COVID at a higher rate than their share of the overall population starting around a year ago is that they make up a *hugely* disproportionate portion of senior citizens to begin with, right? 2/

I agree that this is correct: When you adjust for age by racial/ethnic group, according to @NCHStats, White people only make up around ~41% of cumulative deaths nationally, well below the ~60% they make up of the total population.

HOWEVER... 3/

…that DOESN’T explain why their share, even when adjusted down, has been INCREASING every month for over a year now, even though a) seniors are by far the most vaccinated group; b) seniors are more likely to mask up and c) Delta has been hitting younger people? 4/

HAVING SAID THAT, here's what I believe the monthly graph looks like *WHEN* age-adjusted (I'm basing this on the cumulative age-adjusted rates via @NCHStats):

It's that arrow towards the right which was the larger point I was trying to make: Age-adjusted or not, the White percentage of COVID deaths dropped sharply from Election Day 2020 through March 2021...but has been trending steadily back upwards EVER SINCE THEN.

What accounted for the drop from November 2020 - March 2020? My guess would be because that was the period when most senior citizens got vaccinated. If seniors are disproportionately White, it would make sense that they'd see a drop.

What happened starting in April, however?

Well, on March 29th, 6 states opened up COVID vaccinations to ALL adults. By April 19th, all adults NATIONWIDE were eligible to be vaccinated. On May 10th, the Pfizer vaccine was approved for children 12 - 15 years old.
ajmc.com/view/a-timelin…

Here's the R^2 for county-level 2-dose vaccination rates by Trump 2020 vote level over time (my famous scatter-plot graph). Notice anything noteworthy starting in late March/early April???

Here's the Red/Blue vaccination rate slope over time. Again, notice anything noteworthy starting in late March/early April?