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Vaccinating Americans with their first or second vaccine is more urgent than giving boosters, according to an infectious disease expert, since unvaccinated individuals typically experience the worst outcomes when infected with COVID-19.
“What I’m seeing here at ground level in Alabama and other areas with low immunization rates is that a lot of the morbidity, a lot of the bad outcomes, isn’t in people who don’t. have no reminder, “Dr. Ellen Eaton, assistant professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham’s Division of Infectious Diseases, said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “These are individuals who haven’t rolled up their sleeves for their first or second vaccine, individuals who aren’t fully immunized.”
A recent CDC study found that between April and July 2021, unvaccinated Americans were nearly five times more likely to be infected with COVID-19, 10 times more likely to end up hospitalized for COVID-related complications, and 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than their fully vaccinated counterparts (Another CDC study found that between May 1 and July 25, 2021, unvaccinated Los Angeles County residents were 29 times more likely to ‘be hospitalized.)
The FDA recently approved a third dose of Pfizer vaccine (PFE) / BioNTech (BNTX) for emergency use for people who received the Pfizer vaccine and aged 65 years and over or at high risk, but did not recommended boosters for the general population.
“I’m happy that we have really strong, independent reviews from the FDA and CDC advisory board to make sure we have the data we need to make these decisions,” Eaton said. “But from my perspective, a lot of the results we’re seeing, critical illness, are not due to a shortage of recalls. It’s really because we have a low vaccination rate in general. “
In Alabama, only 41.7% are fully immunized while 52.1% have received at least one dose. In comparison, the rate of fully vaccinated people in the United States is 55.1%. Many cases in Alabama are concentrated in rural areas, where hospital capacity is much lower than in other parts of the state.
“We know that only 41% of Alabamians are fully immunized,” Eaton said. “In our rural areas, it’s a much lower percentage. We know that vaccination is very regional and we know that this virus can cross county borders quite easily. So until our entire state is truly vaccinated, I think we’ll take a break in terms of overly optimistic projections for the future. “
Eaton, like many other public health experts, is working to overcome hesitation about vaccines.
“We still have some hesitation,” Eaton said. “I always encourage all of my colleagues and other providers, family members and loved ones to keep talking about your vaccine experience, to keep sharing data and evidence. We need to flood the social media space with facts and truth. “
President Biden made similar remarks at a press conference on Friday.
“We still have over 70 million Americans who failed to get a single hit,” he said. “To make matters worse, there are elected officials who are actively working to undermine, with false information, the fight against COVID-19. “
‘We continue to have very full hospitals’
While Eaton is hesitant to become overly optimistic about the COVID numbers, she is hopeful about some of the latest trends.
“It’s a moving target,” she said. “We see a hint of optimism. We have seen this before. I hesitate to be overly optimistic with my projections. We have seen some truly devastating results with the Delta surge. We continue to have very full hospitals, even though some of them are opening, and we’re seeing more capacity this week, for example, than last week. “
Critical care capacity has become a major issue in states with high case numbers (and low vaccination rates). In Idaho, for example, hospitals have resorted to rationing of care because they have become too overwhelmed.
“We certainly cannot predict in absolute terms, but I imagine that as long as we have communities that are not largely vaccinated, we will see new mutations, new variants, which have the potential to escape our control. vaccines so that individuals like me who are fully vaccinated can be put on a new mutant so that I get infected and other fully vaccinated people might get sick, ”Eaton said.
Revolutionary cases have become more common due to the contagiousness of the Delta variant. However, the majority of fully vaccinated people with breakthrough cases did not require hospitalization and did not experience severe symptoms.
And while unvaccinated Americans create opportunities for the virus to mutate and potentially evade vaccines, Eaton doesn’t believe this will lead to massive hospitalization or serious illness and death among fully vaccinated people, at least for the time being.
“As long as we have these communities, a lot of rural states where a large percentage are unvaccinated, I think we’re going to see new variants of the coronavirus potentially, variants potentially that can switch into fully vaccinated individuals that lead us to suffer from colds and flu-like illnesses, ”she said. “But I hope we don’t see the massive hospitalizations that we saw before vaccination as part of the vaccination and the fully vaccinated people.
Adriana Belmonte is a journalist and health policy and policy editor for Yahoo Finance. You can follow her on Twitter @adrianambells and reach her at [email protected].
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