COVID is still out there and still very deadly. "During August 2022 alone, we lost 15,284 Americans to COVID-19." (This quote and all quotes below and all other images, are from the link to the second to last image below.) President Biden's statement that the pandemic was over was irresponsible and inaccurate.
The monthly death rate from COVID in the U.S. is comparable to a typical annual death rate from the flu in the U.S.
Vaccination remains a powerful way to prevent COVID deaths. "It’s abundantly clear the majority of deaths continue to be among the unvaccinated (20% of Americans are still without even one dose)."
And, vaccination status, and as a result, deaths and hospitalizations, are strongly correlated with political identity:
The Washington Post posted an article a few days ago highlighting this continued trend. While there is no difference with cases per capita, deaths per capita strikingly separate along partisan lines.
Being boosted matters too:
In addition, there is a clear dose response with vaccines: the more vaccine doses one has, the more that person is protected from death. According to the CDC, vaccinated people with one booster had 3 times the risk of dying compared to people vaccinated with two boosters. Unvaccinated people had 14 times the risk of dying compared to those with two boosters. Interestingly, the under- or un-vaccinated are more and more likely to have been infected. So, models are no longer comparing vaccinated people to immune naïve; rather, they are comparing vaccinated (or hybrid immunity) to those with more and more infection-induced immunity.
Canadian data spell out the risk in detail by age and the number of vaccine doses received:
COVID is not extremely deadly for people under age 50 who aren't extremely vulnerable to disease due to immune system deficiencies or multiple serious pre-existing conditions known to increase vulnerability.
The risk of death is concentrated heavily in those 50 and over. The risk of death for people aged 65-79 is about seven times as great as for those age 50-64. The risk of death for people aged 80+ is roughly twice as great as the risk for those aged 65-79, and roughly fourteen times as great as the risk for those aged 50-65.
Full COVID vaccination reduces the risk of death from COVID by roughly a factor of ten compared to being unvaccinated.
Even a vaccinated person who is 80+ is more likely to die of COVID than an unvaccinated person age 50-64. But death rates for vaccinated people under age 80, and unvaccinated people under age 50 are very low.
As a fully vaccinated person in my 50s, my risk of death from COVID is lower than that of an unvaccinated person aged 12-17, the age of my nieces and nephew.
From here via Fully Myelinated.
This doesn't mean that vaccination is irrelevant for people under fifty. Younger people do die of COVID, even though it is much less common, and vaccination reduces the risk of death for them tenfold as well.
Vaccination prevents hospitalization and long COVID as well, it makes even the less severe versions of the disease more mild, and it reduces the spread of COVID to others who are more vulnerable.
Among patients in the ICU and/or ventilators for COVID-19, about half are immunocompromised, have a significant underlying lung disease, or are over the age of 65 years. Also, 5 out of 6 people in the ICU are under- or un-vaccinated. This highlights that it’s essential to stay up to date on vaccines.
One of six patients in the ICU is up-to-date on vaccines. This highlights that vaccines are not perfect; therefore, it is still important to try and reduce community transmission so vulnerable populations don’t get swept up in waves.
Notably, seven out of eight fully vaccinated hospitalized patients at the University of Michigan's hospitals, including the only fully vaccinated ICU patient, were immunocompromised, had a significant underlying lung disease, or were over the age of 65 years.
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