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Even in its early months, the U.S. coronavirus vaccination campaign saved the lives of tens of thousands of seniors, according to a federal government report released on Tuesday.
From January to May, immunization prevented an estimated 265,000 cases, 107,000 hospitalizations and 39,000 deaths among Medicare beneficiaries over the age of 65 or with disabilities, according to the Department of Health and Human Rights analysis. Social services.
This includes a period when relatively few people were shot. Vaccination began in the United States in mid-December and initially was generally limited to the elderly and those with serious underlying conditions.
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But the deployment was uneven, and vaccine production and distribution continued to increase. As of mid-February, only 4% of the US population had been fully vaccinated, but by the end of May that figure was 41% and about 80% for people over 65.
The HHS study has not looked at deaths since May, when the percentage of people vaccinated continued to rise, but the effectiveness of early vaccines may have declined.
The analysis found that for every 10 percentage point increase in a county’s vaccination rate, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths among Medicare beneficiaries declined from 11% to 12%.
COVID-19 deaths reported by local and state authorities peaked in January at around 4,000 a day, plunged to 200 to 300 a day in July, and have since rebounded to around 2,000 a day. But experts consider these figures to be underestimates.
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