COVID deaths nearing zero

High vaccination rate paying off for Bay Area

COVID19 deaths have nearly bottomed out in the Bay Area, with an average of one new death reported a day for the ninecounty region — the lowest number since the start of the pandemic and a dramatic drop from the winter surge, when nearly 70 people were dying every day.

The region reported no deaths Sunday through Tuesday, the first time three consecutive days have passed without a COVID fatality in more than 15 months. Deaths statewide have also dropped sharply, to about 20 a day from a peak of more than 500 in January.

Nationally, average daily deaths have declined to about 200, the fewest since late March 2020.

Virtually everyone now dying of COVID locally and nationally is unvaccinated, according to public health authorities, Globally, COVID deaths passed 4 million Wednesday, as the highly infectious delta variant surges in countries with limited vaccine sup

ply and where few people are fully immunized.

That the Bay Area — among the most highly vaccinated regions in the world — would see deaths drop to nearly zero is remarkable but not surprising, public health experts said. The plummeting death toll is further evidence that the vaccines are strongly protective against the worst COVID outcomes, even as the delta variant starts to dominate in California, too.

“This doesn’t mean the end of the pandemic. It means that for people who are fully vaccinated, we’re dealing with a much less serious pandemic,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley.

The vaccines are holding up against the delta variant, and socalled breakthrough cases of COVID among people who are fully vaccinated remain rare. About 8,700 such cases were reported in California from Jan. 1 through the end of June, according to data released by the California Department of Public Health. Deaths are even rarer — 71 fatalities have been reported in people who are fully vaccinated, accounting for less than 0.2% of all COVID deaths over the past six months.

About 62,800 people have died of COVID in California, including about 5,775 people in the Bay Area, since the first U.S. death was recorded in Santa Clara County last February. Those numbers actually dropped by a few hundred over recent weeks as several Bay Area counties adjusted their fatality reports to remove people who had died from causes other than the coronavirus.

Local deaths may tick up slightly in the coming weeks, with COVID hospitalizations on the rise in Bay Area along with the rest of the state. The number of people hospitalized with COVID in the Bay Area climbed over 200 this week for

the first time since midMay. The number of patients in intensive care has jumped about 75%, to 67 as of Tuesday, from the pandemic low one month ago.

But infectious disease experts said they don’t expect a large spike in deaths similar to earlier waves of infection. The overall case and hospitalization numbers remain very low, and the people getting sick tend to be younger and at less risk of severe illness and death.

For the past three weeks, people age 35 and younger made up about 55% of all cases in California, said Dr. George Lemp, a retired University of California epidemiologist who regularly analyzes state coronavirus data. Adults age 80 and over made up only about 1% of cases. “So even if we have a fair number of unvaccinated young people, at least the deaths will be averted,” Lemp said.

Deaths also should stay relatively low because treatment for COVID has improved, both in terms of therapies that are now available and awareness of the type of care needed to save lives, infectious disease experts said.

“Deaths are low and are likely to remain low from here

on out,” said Dr. Stephen Shortell, former dean of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. “I think we’re in a stage where this is going to be with us for a while now. And part of living with it means there will be minor spikes in infections, but we’ll see fewer deaths.”

The plunging death toll is cause for celebration, but it should also drive renewed urgency in getting more people vaccinated, public health officials said.

Six Bay Area counties — coincidentally, the same ones that were the first in the U.S. to issue stayathome orders last March — are among only seven counties in California to have fully vaccinated more than 70% of the population eligible for shots, according to the state Department of Public Health.

For the entire Bay Area, 73% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated, and 80% have had at least one dose. But nearly 1.3 million residents who are 12 or older, and therefore eligible for the vaccine, have not been vaccinated.

That group, plus children who can’t yet be vaccinated, adds up to a lot of vulnerable people, especially with a highly infectious variant now circulating, public health officials said.

The delta variant may now make up roughly a third of all cases in California.

“We still have tens of thousands of people in San Francisco who are eligible for vaccine who are not vaccinated,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, head of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. “And delta is like COVID on jet fuel. We’re likely to see an increase in hospitalizations and additional deaths.”

Colfax and others said delta is so much more infectious than earlier variants that it will take even higher vaccination rates than previously thought to reach a level of community immunity that confers protection on those who aren’t vaccinated.

“The umbrella protective effect, it may be significantly mitigated by delta coming in,” Colfax said. “Delta changes the equation.”

In Israel, which has among the highest vaccination rates in the world, more than 80% of adults are fully vaccinated, which appears to be enough to keep deaths very low even as a few deltadriven outbreaks have surfaced, said Dr. Eric Topol, executive vice president of Scripps Research in La Jolla

(San Diego County).

The U.S. is far behind Israel, with less than 70% of adults having received even one vaccine. In some states, it’s fewer than half. The Bay Area and California may be in better shape — and that should prevent another large spike in deaths — but Topol expects fatalities to climb again, nationally and even in wellprotected places.

Topol said vaccinating 80% of those eligible “may be the point where you get the wall developed against delta.” One “wild card” that may bolster that wall of protection, he added, is the number of people who were previously infected and therefore naturally immune.

“We’re hitting the low point in deaths, and it’s great,” Topol said. “But it’s a temporary thing. If we had done a much better job in vaccinating, we could have avoided all of this. We have a defense — it’s just so sad that we haven’t used it more fully.”