Almost all the people who succumbed to Covid-19 in the US recently were unvaccinated, according to an analysis of government data.
About 150 people out of more than 18,000 who died due to coronavirus in May were fully vaccinated, which means vaccinated people accounted for just 0.8 per cent of the deaths, analysis by the Associated Press indicates.
In the same month, “breakthrough infections” — Covid cases among fully vaccinated individuals — were found among 1,200 out of 853,000 people who needed hospitalisation. Breakthrough infections accounted for 0.1 per cent of hospitalisations.
This comes as Covid-19 deaths per day are down to 300 from a daily high of 3400 in mid-January after the worst affected country with coronavirus rolled out a vaccination drive in December.
The country has vaccinated 63 per cent of vaccine-eligible individuals with at least one dose and 53 per cent are fully vaccinated, according to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. But the country is falling short of the Biden administration’s goal of inoculating 70 per cent of the population by 4 July.
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CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky on Tuesday said Covid vaccines are “nearly 100% effective against severe disease and death.”
“Nearly every death, especially among adults, due to Covid-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable,” Ms Walensky said.
Leading infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has, however, sounded an alarm over the Delta variant, that first emerged in India, calling it the “greatest threat” to the US’s attempt to eliminate Covid-19.
He said the “more transmissible” Delta variant now accounts for 20 per cents of the cases in the US while experts suggested that it can soon become a dominant variant.
Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said its “transmissibility is unquestionably greater" than the original variant of Covid and added that "it is associated with an increased disease severity."
