"COVID-19 vaccination rates in Eastern Europe have been consistently lower than those in Western Europe (for example, only 11.5% of the population in Bulgaria had received two vaccine doses by 1 July 2021, and this number only increased to 29.6% by the end of March 2022 [24]), meaning that the Alpha wave and especially the Delta wave enc…
"COVID-19 vaccination rates in Eastern Europe have been consistently lower than those in Western Europe (for example, only 11.5% of the population in Bulgaria had received two vaccine doses by 1 July 2021, and this number only increased to 29.6% by the end of March 2022 [24]), meaning that the Alpha wave and especially the Delta wave encountered a much larger proportion of completely immunologically naive individuals in populations in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe, resulting in the observed disproportionally higher mortality in the former. Indeed, we find a strong inverse correlation between vaccination rates and excess mortality, in particular in 2021"
"COVID-19 vaccination rates in Eastern Europe have been consistently lower than those in Western Europe (for example, only 11.5% of the population in Bulgaria had received two vaccine doses by 1 July 2021, and this number only increased to 29.6% by the end of March 2022 [24]), meaning that the Alpha wave and especially the Delta wave encountered a much larger proportion of completely immunologically naive individuals in populations in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe, resulting in the observed disproportionally higher mortality in the former. Indeed, we find a strong inverse correlation between vaccination rates and excess mortality, in particular in 2021"
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/10/11/1901