evidence: Looking at COVID data in recent months, it may appear that a significant proportion of the people who have died of COVID were vaccinated against the disease. But it is important to put those numbers in context. [...] Another way to think about the protection vaccination provides is to compare the ratios of death rates among the vaccinated and unvaccinated. For the month of March, "unvaccinated people 12 years and older had 17 times the rate of COVID-associated deaths, compared to people vaccinated with a primary series and a booster dose," says Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service commander Heather Scobie, deputy team lead for surveillance and analytics at the CDC’s Epidemiology Task Force.* "Unvaccinated people had eight times the rate of death as compared to people who only had a primary series," suggesting that boosters increase the level of protection. [...] An additional factor to consider is that as the pandemic wears on and a disproportionate number of unvaccinated people die from COVID, the unvaccinated population shrinks. This leaves a comparatively larger vaccinated group, leading to an increase in total deaths despite the lower death rate among vaccinated people. No vaccine is 100 percent effective, but immunization reduces the risk of dying from COVID substantially.