Who is dying of COVID amid omicron surge and widespread vaccine availability?

[douglas9]

When the recent COVID-19 wave fueled by the omicron variant hit the U.S., no one expected it would lead to the number of deaths it did.

As of Wednesday, the nation is reporting 2,200 new COVID daily deaths on average. While this is lower than the 3,400-peak seen last winter, it's still three times higher than the number of average fatalities recorded two months ago.

Additionally, last winter, vaccines had only just started to roll out, children were not yet eligible and the conversation surrounding boosters was far off.

With around 60% of Americans fully vaccinated during the most recent wave, daily deaths from omicron are still relatively high, which begs the question: Who is dying of COVID-19 when there is such strong vaccination coverage?

Infectious disease doctors say it is still mainly unvaccinated people, most of whom are in their 30s and 40s with no underlying health issues, who are dying.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/dying-covid-unvaccinated/story?id=82834971

[TheFarseer]

1. Vaccinated people are still dying

Those shots you got last March have "worn off" in some people. For people that got the booster shot, it's virtually unheard to have a death among those people. I see the stats every day.

[Ms. Toad]

4. 5.3% of the people in CA who died were vaxxed AND boosted.

(between 12/12/21 and 1/23/22). (From the article at the link in the OP.)

5.3% is a lot more than "virtually unheard of."

[TheFarseer]

5. Really!?

That is interesting. Maybe I have old information.

[Demsrule86]

9. That is not true. I am on cell in bed still.

Hospitals exhaust me and I looked it up. I can’t copy it on phone easily. So will pst a link later.

[Johonny]

10. It's still very deadly for at risk patients. All the more reason for healthy people to be vaxxed.

"Also, patients who have other medical conditions: obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV," Sohbanie said. "So, if you have other medical conditions that can also put you at high risk, those are the [fully vaccinated] patients that can wind up getting hospitalized and dying of COVID."

[Ms. Toad]

32. Just reporting what is in the article linked to. n/t

[Tree Lady]

14. Yes and even though a low number

People who are antivaxers use it to say doesn't matter. They don't see the 94.7%

[uponit7771]

17. 30% of deaths fully vaxed and boosted in cali doesn't sound right whatsoever.

I'd like to see a confirming chart on that, no other chart up till now shows that

[LisaL]

23. You have to realize that high percentage of people in Ca are vaccinated.

Thus, it is a larger group compared to un-vaccinated.

[Ms. Toad]

33. 5.3%, not 30%. n/t

[uponit7771]

38. The chart shows 23% are dying that are "Fully Vaxed" then it shows 5% "boosted" You have to be vaxed

... to be boosted so those numbers add to around 28% ... I rounded up.

those deaths are numbers I've not seen anywhere

[Demsrule86]

6. My sons sis in law is a nurse at large hospital. She says

None I repeat none of the fatalities in her hospital have among vaccinated my patients. There was a four year old who died but she was too young. I blame anti- Vaxers for her death and others among kids.

[Ms. Toad]

34. Even assuming yoru sons sis in law knows the status of every single person dying from COVID

in her hospital, that's one hosptal. Pretty sure there's more than one hospital (and even more than one large hospital) in CA.

[Pobeka]

21. The devil is in the details, as they say.

As Ms. Toad points out, 5.3% of those dying are vaxxed and boosted, but the article also says those vaxxed and boosted who are dying tend to have additional complications (suppressed immune systems, etc.)

A fair comparison would break the groups out by not just vaxxed, boosted and age, but also number and/or severity of comorbities.

[temporary311]

27. The average age of vaxxed and boosted dying

also tends to be fairly high, around 80. I guess old age can be considered a complication when it comes to covid, though.

[Pobeka]

31. Absolutely. If age was considered a comorbidity, it would be the worst one.

Back in the quaint days of only alpha/beta variants, it really infuriated me that younger folks with 1 comorbidity were going to get a vax shot before me. I had found the raw data at the time, and they had missed the relative risk by an order of magnitude, in other words being 60-70 years old with no comorbidities made you 10 times more likely to die from infection than a 20 year old with one comorbidity.

[Ms. Toad]

35. I was solely responding to the allegation that deaths among the vaccinated and boosted are

"virtually unheard of." That isn't accurate, at least according to the information in the article.

That those deaths occur among vaccinated and boosted individuals with additional risk factors doesn't make those vaccinated and boosted individuals any less dead (any more than the reality that most of all deaths from COVID occur in individuals with additional risk factors).

[Pobeka]

39. No worries. I understood your point.

I just wanted to also point out it wasn't an apples to apples comparison.

What is sad, is even those vaxxed & boosted individuals who are high risk would be more protected if everyone got vaxxed & boosted so the risk of a high viral load encounter would drop.

[Ms. Toad]

40. Except that it is apples to apples.

It just doesn't break the category of apples into sub-categories of gala, red delicious, jonathan, etc.

Both the vaccinated and unvaccinated deaths include all of those with additional categories.

[Ray Bruns]

2. In the words of my boot camp CPO, "Oh well."

[Nay]

3. Please remember that Omicron is much more contagious than Delta was, so that

means more people catch it and more people die. Since we don't test much in the US, we have no idea how many people are catching it, but we can guess that nearly every unvaxxed person will get it sooner or later. This provides a large pool of sick people, some of whom will die. More deaths are a result of more infections; it doesn't mean Omicron is more deadly. It's actually less deadly.

[Deep State Witch]

7. My Friend's Sister Was Vaxxed and Boosted

However, she was high-risk because of multiple illnesses. She died last month. What's p*ssing my friend off is that they have "unvaccinated" on her death certificate. She doesn't want to fight it because she needs the death certificates. I think that she should fight to change it.

[liberal_mama]

22. My grandmother's death certificate had inaccurate information on it. We fought to change it for

genealogy purposes. Someday, your friend's sisters relatives will be searching for her information and it would be bad if they thought she was an anti-vaxxer.

[LisaL]

24. Why would they put that on her death certificate?

There is no "vaccination status" on the death certificate.

[Skittles]

29. urge your friend to get that changed

that is not right

[cadoman]

36. I think she should absolutely fight to change it

They don't want that ruining their family's reputation.

Did it have to do with booster status? There is a significant time span after getting a shot that a person is not considered vaccinated. Maybe your friend's sister fell into that time span? Technically speaking they do have to wait 14 days to build antibodies after the shot.

[Catherine Vincent]

37. Really?

That is just wrong to put unvaccinated on a death certificate. Maybe the admin at the hospital made a mistake.

Rest in peace to your friend's sister.

[Demsrule86]

8. Hubs is in hospital with herniated disk. He

Likely will have surgery. There was not one Covid patient there yesterday… not one.

[hippywife]

12. It's pretty dependent on where you live right now.

In states with low vax rates and populated by anti-maskers, hospitalization rates are still considerable.

[Coventina]

19. Our numbers are going up here in Maricopa County AZ. n/t

[Ace Rothstein]

26. Every website that shows case data says the opposite.

Cases have been dropping in Maricopa for weeks and there is no change on the graph of cases.

[Coventina]

28. Huh, I guess our local NPR affiliate is lying then.

They said this morning our cases were up.

Maybe it was overall state numbers and not Maricopa county?

[Ace Rothstein]

30. Maybe they were referring specifically to B.2?

Cases of that can rise but overall cases can be down.

[Busterscruggs]

11. This concerns me

I am in the at risk group of 30 somethings. I have had all the vaccines and am up to date on my boosters. I even make sure to double up on masks, face shield and wear heavy elbow long rubber gloves when out in public. My parents have refused to be vaccinated and "all that nonsense" so I'm terrified they'll bring something home with them. I'm just glad I can stay in as much as possible because they're still able to go to the store

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

13. But they still have their free dumb

[yardwork]

15. No one expected? That's false.

Poorly written article, lost me in the first sentence.

[maxsolomon]

16. Vague article that really doesn't answer the question.

I'd love to see a real breakdown of the deaths:
Vaxx status
Age
Risk Factors yes/no
Ethnicity
Urban/Rural

[uponit7771]

18. +1

[Hugin]

20. 'mainly' is such a precise word.

Almost as abused as 'endemic' at this point.

[LisaL]

25. I take objection to "no one expected it would lead to the number of deaths it did."

US is a nation full of overweight people with pre-existing conditions.
As such it was totally predictable that omicron was going to result in a large number of deaths.