Covid-19 deaths have declined since vaccines became widely available in April, yet nearly a quarter million people in the United States have passed away from the virus in the last eight months.
For many younger Americans and white Americans, in fact, Covid is now responsible for a higher share of deaths from all causes than it was earlier in the pandemic.
How the Omicron variant will affect these trends remains to be seen. Scientists are still hopeful that vaccines — and especially boosters — will stave off Omicron’s worst effects.
Covid has been particularly deadly for older people, but the group was among the first to be eligible for vaccines. Now, people 65 and older have the highest vaccination rate, with nearly 90 percent of them fully vaccinated, and the share of deaths attributed to the virus in that age group has declined.
Here, in charts, is a look at how vaccines have shifted the proportion of deaths to different populations in the United States:
