COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against death in Japan remains unknown. Furthermore, although evidence indicates that healthcare capacity influences case-fatality risk (CFR), it remains unknown whether this relationship is mediated by age. With a modeling study, we analyzed daily COVID-19 cases and deaths during January-August 2021 by using Tokyo surveillance data to jointly estimate COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against death and age-specific CFR. We also examined daily healthcare operations to determine the association between healthcare burden and age-specific CFR. Among fully vaccinated patients, vaccine effectiveness against death was 88.6% among patients 60-69 years of age, 83.9% among patients 70-79 years of age, 83.5% among patients 80-89 years of age, and 77.7% among patients >90 years of age. A positive association of several indicators of healthcare burden with CFR among patients >70 years of age suggested an age-dependent effect of healthcare burden on CFR in Japan.
Keywords: 2019 novel coronavirus disease; COVID-19; Japan; SARS-CoV-2; case-fatality risk; coronavirus disease; healthcare burden; respiratory infections; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; vaccine effectiveness against death; vaccines; viruses; zoonoses.