99% of Americans who have died from COVID-19 haven’t been vaccinated recently

(CNN) – Last month, 130 people died COVID-19 in Maryland, USA. None of them have been vaccinated, according to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

Additionally, unvaccinated people account for 95% of the state’s new COVID-19 cases and 93% of new COVID-19 hospital admissions, Hogan said at a press conference Wednesday.

Medical experts said the relationship between vaccination status and COVID-19 is not unique to Maryland and is not limited to the past month.

Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said the Maryland data is a trend that will emerge in states across the country.

“There is no doubt that almost all deaths and hospitalizations will be in unvaccinated people, and therefore we should expect that the majority of critical illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths will occur predominantly in areas with low vaccination and high delta presence.” As in the south and west of the mountain, he said.

“So far it confirms what we’ve seen in phase 3 clinical trials – that all vaccines licensed for emergency use provide additional protection against hospitalization and mortality, and that has now been confirmed in very practical circumstances over the past year,” Hotez added. “It’s a reminder that you have every reason to get vaccinated.”

Dr. Paul Sacks, an infectious disease physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, similarly highlighted the Maryland data as evidence of the continued effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

“We found that 99% of people with serious illnesses are not vaccinated, so vaccines prevent serious diseases, even in the [la variante] Delta”.

Dr. Rochelle Walinsky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provided similar numbers during a White House news conference last week.

In fact, more than 99% of COVID-19 deaths in the United States in June were among unvaccinated people. In addition, preliminary data indicates that over the past six months, nearly all of the COVID-19 deaths in various states have occurred in unvaccinated people, Walinsky said last week during a White House briefing.

“Preliminary data from a group of states over the past six months indicates that 99.5% of COVID-19 deaths in these states occurred in people who were not immunized,” Walinsky said. It was not specified in any countries.

In California, between January 1 and June 30, only 8,699 of the 20 million people who were fully vaccinated were infected with COVID-19, According to state data. At least 652 of them were hospitalized and at least 71 died — a tiny percentage compared to the 37,180 Californians who died in the same time frame, according to data from Johns Hopkins.

The data is further evidence of the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, which have been shown to be remarkably effective in preventing new COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths, according to studies of tens of thousands of people around the world.

The CDC has tracked so-called vaccinated infections, in which a vaccinated person is hospitalized or dies of COVID-19. The CDC has recorded 879 deaths among vaccinated people, a small portion of the more than 600,000 Americans who have died from the novel coronavirus.

Unvaccinated people are at risk

Overall, new infections, hospitalizations and deaths have fallen dramatically for everyone in recent months, with more than two-thirds of Americans receiving at least one dose of the vaccine.

However, unvaccinated people remain susceptible, especially in areas of the country where vaccination rates are low.

“It is really sad and tragic that most of these [casos] It’s preventable and preventable,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

Fauci noted that there is no vaccine that provides perfect protection for everyone, but the data shows its clear positive effect.

“Obviously there will be some people, because of the variance between people and their response to the vaccine, you’ll see that they get vaccinated and they still have problems and they get hospitalized and they die,” he said. But the vast majority of people with problems are not vaccinated.

In fact, states with below-average vaccination rates have nearly three times the rate of new COVID-19 cases than states with above-average vaccination rates, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that people who were vaccinated against the coronavirus, if infected, had milder disease than people who were not immunized.

At a press conference on Tuesday, President Joe Biden emphasized that vaccines are highly effective and safe.

“Study after study has shown that since the beginning of May, almost all hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 in the United States have occurred among the unvaccinated. So if you are vaccinated, you are protected, but if you are not vaccinated, you are ‘no.’” So please vaccinate now. He’s working. it’s free. It has never been more important.”

Infectious disease experts also explained that unvaccinated people present an opportunity for the virus to mutate.

“The more people who are not vaccinated, the greater the chances of the virus reproducing,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “When that happens, it progresses and can cause a mutant mutation that is more dangerous in the future.

“So the unvaccinated people are potential diversified plants,” he added.

CNN’s Jason Hoffman, Virginia Langmaid, Lauren Mascarenhas, and Naomi Thomas contributed to this report.