What are CDC estimates of COVID-19 death rates by vaccination status and age group?

1. What the CDC explicitly reports about death and severe outcomes by vaccination status

CDC’s recent public materials and MMWR analyses emphasize vaccine effectiveness against severe disease rather than publishing a simple “death rate by vaccination status” table in the linked items. The interim VISION and IVY analysis reports VE for 2024–2025 vaccines: 33% against COVID‑19–associated emergency department/urgent care visits among adults ≥18 years and 45%–46% against hospitalizations among immunocompetent adults aged ≥65 years compared with not receiving the 2024–2025 vaccine dose ^[1]. COVID-NET and CDC surveillance pages describe tracking of hospitalizations and deaths and include vaccination history as an outcome variable, but the linked COVID-NET landing page does not itself present a consolidated chart of death rates by vaccination status and age in the search results provided ^{[2] [3]}.

2. How CDC measures and frames the data: VE, hospitalizations, and limitations

CDC uses networks (VISION, IVY, COVID‑NET) to estimate vaccine effectiveness against outcomes like ED/UC visits and hospitalization, and it states that VE against critical illness (ICU, mechanical ventilation, death) historically is higher but could not be reliably estimated in that MMWR because hospitalization rates were relatively low during the study period ^[1]. That phrasing signals two things: CDC prioritizes VE estimates and sometimes cannot estimate death-specific VE due to small numbers; and when sample sizes are low, death-rate estimates become unstable and therefore are not always published in the same reports ^[1].

3. Age is decisive: older adults bear most of the mortality risk

CDC and affiliated reporting stress that adults 65 and older remain far more likely to be hospitalized and die from COVID-19; ACIP and CDC recommend vaccination especially for higher‑risk groups and cite stronger measured protection among older adults in VE studies ^{[4] [1]}. For example, the MMWR highlighted measurable VE against hospitalization in adults ≥65 years (45%–46% for 2024–2025 vaccine), underscoring the age gradient in severe outcomes ^[1].

4. What’s missing from these search results — and why that matters

The documents surfaced here do not include a single CDC-issued table of COVID‑19 death rates separated by vaccination status across all age bands; the CDC’s public guidance and surveillance landing pages instead discuss vaccination’s impact, VE estimates for specific outcomes and age groups, and note surveillance complexities ^{[2] [3] [1]}. Therefore, a reader seeking a precise numeric death rate (e.g., deaths per 100,000 by vaccination status and age group) will not find that consolidated figure in the linked items; available sources do not mention a comprehensive CDC death‑rate-by‑vaccination‑status table in these search results ^{[2] [1]}.

5. Competing perspectives and context to consider

CDC materials and independent outlets emphasize vaccines protect against severe illness and death, and CDC’s VE studies show significant reductions in hospitalization risk among older adults ^{[1] [4]}. Alternative viewpoints in public discourse sometimes request granular death-rate comparisons by vaccination status and age; the CDC’s surveillance approach — reporting VE and hospitalization trends and noting limits when case counts are low — explains why granular death-rate breakdowns may not appear in every release ^{[1] [2]}. Readers should also note that vaccine recommendations for 2025–2026 are framed as shared clinical decision‑making for ages ≥6 months, reflecting changing policy emphasis on individual risk assessment ^{[5] [6]}.

6. How to get the specific death-rate numbers you’re asking for

To obtain the exact CDC death rates by vaccination status and age group, the next step is to consult CDC interactive dashboards and the detailed COVID‑NET or National Vital Statistics System reports directly (the COVID‑NET and surveillance pages are the entry points named in search results) and, if needed, request underlying data or recent MMWR reports that specifically analyze mortality by vaccination status and age — those resources are referenced by CDC pages here but the current search results do not include a mortality-by‑vaccination‑status table ^{[2] [3] [1]}.

Limitations: This summary uses only the provided search results; a consolidated CDC table of death rates by vaccination status and age group is not shown in those documents returned here ^{[2] [1]}.