Despite strong levels of vaccination among older people, Covid killed them at vastly higher rates during this winter’s Omicron wave than it did last year, preying on long delays since their last shots and the variant’s ability to skirt immune defenses.
This winter’s wave of deaths in older people belied the Omicron variant’s relative mildness. Almost as many Americans 65 and older died in four months of the Omicron surge as did in six months of the Delta wave, even though the Delta variant, for any one person, tended to cause more severe illness.
While overall per capita Covid death rates have fallen, older people still account for an overwhelming share of them.
Omicron's lethality rate among seniors was worse than Deltahttps://t.co/DqZooPJKva
The waning of vaccinations, lack of adequate booster uptake in this high-risk age group were contributory factors— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 31, 2022