On the contrary, the slope should have steepened, even if you revise history of rollout. There were only a few million out in early Feb, and many of those were NOT the elderly, they were “essential personnel”.
Have a look at the death count curve shape of last year from the Northeast, about April. It looks much the same. You’re going to be hard pressed to revise history to a vaccine rollout in April 2020.
Look, I have no doubt at all they did great work on the vaccines. They are likely very effective against the original strain. But that’s not what’s in society now.
It’s useful to examine the death curve of other countries. The UK DOES have a very steep descent. They were very strict about border control/travel and South Africa/Manaus/California variants didn’t get in. Their descent is near vertical.
Ours should be. It’s not.
Have a look at France and Russia. They were no less aggressive about vaccinations, and their death decline is even more shallow than the US.
“On the contrary, the slope should have steepened, even if you revise history of rollout. There were only a few million out in early Feb, and many of those were NOT the elderly, they were “essential personnel”....”
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Look, I’m sorry but YOU are confusing the “early February” vaccine situation with the December situation. I’ll give you one link and there are many more links to the historical COVID-19 vaccine story. Believe what you want or believe the historical record.
Russia has administered 1/5 the doses per 100 population, France less than 40%.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
And you can't assume a direct relationship between vaccines and cases or even deaths. Behavior plays a large role, and the USA is rapidly opening. Even here in CA, stores, gyms, restaurants and bars are opening up, sporting events are being held, the sun is out and parks and beaches are full. Kids are going back to school and playing sports (with bleachers full of proud parents), commute traffic is back to at least 70% of pre-pandemic. People are moving on from social distancing and sitting at home. They are going out, getting back to work and meeting up with friends and family. That is going to shape the curves.
There is a VERY strong inverse relationship between vaccination and COVID infection. Vaccinated people are NOT testing positive or getting sick. The vaccines are working very well, even in CA against the "CA Variant".
Cases in the USA peaked on 8 January and then declined steeply, but the steep drop in deaths was not until February - after Nursing Home residents finished their first shots. Over 40% of the deaths last year were from that small, vulnerable group (>1.5 million).
Israel leads the world in vaccination, and their cases, hospitalizations and deaths have been falling sharply - like 50% week over week.