[*NOTE: This post corrects an earlier post of the same name]
Chile is the third-most vaccinated nation on the planet, behind Gibraltar and Cuba. But high vaccine coverage has led to weekly excess death rates more than half of those seen in the weekly average of 74 deaths per million from the 4.5 years of fighting in World War I (WWI).
Key:
—blue line = Weekly Excess Death per Million in Chile
—orange line = Average Weekly Excess Death per Million during WWI
—green notes = Peak and Average Weekly Excess Death during Severe Flu Season
As noted in the graph, heavy COVID vaccination has been able to keep average weekly excess death rates in Chile above the season (6-month; or 26-week) average weekly death rate of 14.2 weekly deaths per million found in the 2017/18 flu season in the US (which was a severe season).
In fact, with more and more vaccine uptake, Chile recently approached the average weekly death rate seen in WWI (horizontal orange line at 74 weekly excess deaths per million).
These data show that caution should be used with COVID vaccines, because they lead to such high excess death rates.
If the average weekly excess death rate with full-vaccination remains more than 14.2 weekly deaths per million (the season average of the 2017/18 flu), then it is likely that there is vaccine-mediated enhanced disease (VMED).
Considering how the circulating COVID variants such as Omicron are no longer worse than flu, a good vaccine would keep excess death rates below the season-average of a severe flu season (below 14.2 weekly excess deaths per million).
But, for several months now, excess death in Chile is above the average weekly death that is seen with severe flu, indicating VMED.
Reference
[WWI death (16.5 million dead from 960 million population over 234 weeks of fighting)] Available: https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/reperes112018.pdf
[Excess death per million in Chile] Available: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-deaths-per-million-covid?tab=chart&time=earliest..latest&country=~CHL