Nearly all Covid deaths in US among unvaccinated

Nearly all Covid-19 deaths in the US now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day – now down to under 300 – could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.

An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1200 of more than 853,000 Covid-19 hospitalisations. That’s about 0.1 per cent.

And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 Covid-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8 per cent, or five deaths per day on average.

The AP analysed figures provided by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC itself has not estimated what percentage of hospitalisations and deaths are in fully vaccinated people, citing limitations in the data.

Among them: Only about 45 states report breakthrough infections, and some are more aggressive than others in looking for such cases. So the data probably understates such infections, CDC officials said.

Still, the overall trend that emerges from the data echoes what many health care authorities are seeing around the US and what top experts are saying.

Earlier this month, Andy Slavitt, a former adviser to the Biden administration on Covid-19, suggested that 98 per cent to 99 per cent of the Americans dying of the coronavirus are unvaccinated.

And CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday that the vaccine is so effective that “nearly every death, especially among adults, due to Covid-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable”.

Deaths in the US have plummeted from a peak of more than 3400 day on average in mid-January, one month into the vaccination drive.

About 63 per cent of all vaccineeligible Americans — those 12 and older — have received at least one dose, and 53 per cent are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

The preventable deaths will continue, experts predict, with unvaccinated pockets of the nation experiencing outbreaks in the autumn and winter. Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, said modeling suggests the nation will hit 1000 deaths per day again next year.