With the Covid-vaccinated now accounting for the majority of Covid deaths, the Kaiser Foundation says that "we can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated."
Covid is no longer mainly a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Here’s why. | Washington Post - McKenzie Beard, Health 202:
November 23, 2022 - "It’s no longer a pandemic of the unvaccinated. For the first time, a majority of Americans dying from the coronavirus received at least the primary series of the vaccine.
"Fifty-eight percent of coronavirus deaths in August were people who were vaccinated or boosted, according to an analysis conducted for The Health 202 by Cynthia Cox, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. It’s a continuation of a troubling trend that has emerged over the past year.... In September 2021, vaccinated people made up just 23 percent of coronavirus fatalities. In January and February this year, it was up to 42 percent, per our colleagues Fenit Nirappil and Dan Keating.
"'We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,' Cox told The Health 202.... Cox, like many experts, says she’s not surprised by the ratio shift. There are a few reasons:
- At this point in the pandemic, a large majority of Americans have received at least their primary series of coronavirus vaccines, so it makes sense that vaccinated people are making up a greater share of fatalities.
- Individuals at greatest risk of dying from a coronavirus infection, such as the elderly, are also more likely to have received the shots.
- Vaccines lose potency against the virus over time and variants arise that are better able to resist the vaccines, so continued boosters are needed to continue to prevent illness and death.
- The BA.5 omicron subvariant became dominant in July and consistently accounted for the majority of new coronavirus infections across the United States until earlier this month. The highly transmissible strain fueled a surge of new infections, reinfections and hospitalizations throughout the summer.
"It’s still true that vaccinated groups are at a lower risk of dying from a covid-19 infection than the unvaccinated when the data is adjusted for age..... Let’s take a look at deaths in August, when the highly contagious BA.5 variant reached its peak: That month, unvaccinated people aged 6 months and older died at about six times the rate of those who had received their primary series of shots.... Unvaccinated people over the age of 5 had about 8 times the risk of dying from a coronavirus infection than those who received a booster shot.... Unvaccinated people 50 and up had 12 times the risk of dying from covid-19 than adults the same age with two or more booster doses.
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