Covid Year Two: After the Vaccine

Reporting by Will Huntsberry and Jesse Marx

The Covid-19 vaccine has led to dramatic reductions in death. The number of San Diegans who died related to Covid fell from roughly 4,200 in the pandemic’s first year to roughly 2,200 in the second year, after the vaccine became widely available.

In year one, deaths were concentrated in non-White, low-income parts of the county. But now, that is changing.

Voice of San Diego logged and analyzed every Covid-related death certificate over the first two years of the pandemic to begin to understand how the advent of the vaccine, as well as other factors, are leading to changing death rates.

Our findings show that while death rates tended to go down in most places, the way deaths are distributed has changed significantly.

Latinos, for instance, were more than four times as likely to die as Whites during the first year of the pandemic, according to age-adjusted death rates calculated by Voice. That gap fell by half during the pandemic’s second year.

Covid Killed Half as Many San Diegans During Year Two of the Pandemic, But More Young People

Public health professionals credit the vaccine for bringing the total death toll down. But the median age of death also dropped, meaning the virus killed a younger proportion of San Diegans as time went on.

Covid Year Two: Death Gap Narrowed Between Racial Groups — Class Less So

Health disparities existed long before the pandemic. But after the rollout of vaccines, that disparity is slipping.

Covid Year Two: Deaths More than Doubled in Lakeside, and Went Down Virtually Everywhere Else

Covid-19 death rates actually increased in several East County communities in year two of the pandemic, even as they dropped virtually everywhere else. Residents there are much less likely to be vaccinated.

Behind VOSD’s Covid Year Two Investigation

Voice of San Diego reporters spent months logging and analyzing death certificates for the second year of the pandemic. Here’s what they found

These stories are part of an ongoing investigative series.
Subscribe to our newsletters to keep up.

The Data

This series is supported by the Data-Driven Reporting Project.
To request access to our data for research or reporting purposes email:
 will.huntsberry@voiceofsandiego.org or jesse.marx@voiceofsandiego.org.

Year One: Covid-19’s Death Toll

View the Year One project page.

Support local investigative journalism.