The people who would have been hospitalized and died of covid already died in the previously infected group.

You're looking at a fundamentally different group of people.

If you didn't consider the vaccinated people who then died of covid, you'd see a lot less hospitalizations there too

Can you help me understand the focus of your comment?

Should the current group who have recovered take the side-effect risks, or is the CDC note about reduced susceptibility to infection something to consider when making a decision about the first vaccine shot?

There was an article just one or two days ago that indicated that vaccination prevents against hospitalization something like many multiples of times greater protection than recovery from prior infection.

Link?