What pandemic?
There may still be a "pandemic" going on, but of what, I'm not exactly sure.
According to data compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics (i.e., from death certificate information provided by the individual states) and reported by the CDC, there were 1,542 deaths *involving COVID in the state of South Carolina last month (i.e., September 2021). By way of comparison, there were 601 deaths involving COVID in South Carolina in September 2020 (at which time, of course, no one had been vaccinated). That is an increase of some 157%.
That 1,542 figure was, by the way, the second highest monthly death total in South Carolina since the pandemic began, surpassed only by the 2,103 deaths involving COVID that were incurred in the state in January 2021.
We'll see what October brings, but so far the trend seems to be continuing. For the week ending October 9, 2021, there were 219 deaths involving COVID in South Carolina. For the comparable week a year ago (i.e., the week ending October 10, 2020), there were 91 such deaths. This amounts to a 141% increase for the week ending October 9, 2021, compared to the year before. (The information received by the NCHS tends to lag a bit, so that "219" figure may possibly increase in the coming days as the database is updated.)
If the vaccines work to "prevent death," why are there more deaths involving COVID now -- considerably more, in many cases -- when so many have been vaccinated, compared to last year at this same time, when no one had been vaccinated? This is not a rhetorical question, but I, for one, have only hypotheses and speculation by way of any answer.
________
*The CDC defines "deaths involving COVID" in these words: "Deaths with confirmed or presumed COVID-19, coded to ICD–10 code U07.1."