When a COVID cluster includes people who are vaccinated against the virus, we inevitably hear rumblings of complaint from people who wonder what the point is of vaccination. But when you read past the headlines, you usually see the answer: in most cases, those who were vaccinated and contracted COVID-19 didn’t die, didn’t develop severe symptoms and didn’t need to be hospitalised. For unvaccinated Australians in their later years, the chance of dying from COVID is high. For unvaccinated people in their 80s, around 32% who contract COVID will die from it. For people in their 70s, it’s around 14%. (For unvaccinated people in their 60s, it drops to around 3%. And for under-50s, it’s less than 1%.)