Thread by @Humble_Analysis

WA state (where I live) publishes cases & deaths by date of symptom onset, making accurate CFR trends possible.

For the elderly population, CFRs declined steadily in 2020 before stabilizing in early 2021 at ~7%.

Why didn't mass vaccination reduce CFR for the elderly in 2021?

The answer is not that fewer elderly people are dying: between August and November in WA there were 1376 deaths in 2020 but 2181 deaths in 2021.

In other words, there were 1.6X as many deaths in a highly vaccinated population.

Why didn't mass vaccination prevent death in 2021?

WA states does produce a report which claims that the death rate is 15X higher amongst the 18% of elderly who are unvaccinated.

Does this seem believable, given the raw data (produced by WA state) presented in the graphs above?

doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Docu…

WA state also claims that cases are 6X higher amongst the unvaccinated elderly, which differs from data produced elsewhere, all around the world, showing that vaccine efficacy against infection is now zero or even negative.

Why are vaccines so much more effective here?

Using the efficacy data presented by WA state, I calculate an implied CFR of 8.2% amongst the unvaccinated (18% of pop) and 3% amongst the vaccinated (82%) for a weighted average of just under 4%.

What explains this gap from the overall CFR of 7% published elsewhere?

The only mathematically feasible explanations for WA state data is that either fewer people are vaccinated than the state claims, or the CFR is overstated, or (most likely) they are manipulating populations (who they count as unvaccinated) to intentionally overstate VE.