Texas has recorded nearly 9,000 deaths from COVID-19 since February. All but 43 were unvaccinated people.

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Of the 8,787 people who have died in Texas from COVID-19 since early February, at least 43 have been fully immunized, the Texas Department of State Health Services said.

This means that 99.5% of people who died from COVID-19 in Texas from February 8 to July 14 were unvaccinated, while 0.5% were the result of “breakthrough infections,” which the DSHS defines such as people who contracted the virus two weeks after being fully immunized.

The agency did not disclose details of the 43 deaths and noted that these were preliminary figures, which could change as each case must be confirmed by public health investigations. Statewide, more than 50,000 people have died from COVID-19 since March 2020, but the death rate has slowed significantly since vaccines became widely available in April.

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University of Texas chief medical officer Dr David Lakey said people succumbing to coronavirus despite being vaccinated were “not unexpected.”

“No vaccine is 100%,” said Lakey, who is also a member of the Texas Medical Association’s COVID-19 task force. “And we’ve known for a long time that vaccines aren’t 100%, but they’re really very effective in preventing serious illness and hospitalizations. … There will always be individuals who succumb to the disease in the absence of full herd immunity.

He added that 0.5% is “a very low number of individuals in a state of 30 million.” … In the grand perspective of all, not many people would question the use of this vaccine at all.

COVID-19 cases have increased in Texas and nationwide – primarily among unvaccinated people – as the highly contagious delta variant has become dominant. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 88% effective against symptomatic cases of the delta variant and 96% effective against hospitalizations, according to Yale Medicine. Researchers are still studying the effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine against the delta variant, but believe it might work similarly to Pfizer.

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As of Monday, 42.8% of Texans were fully immunized; the state continues to lag behind the national immunization rate of 48.8%, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The DSHS does not track the number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations among those vaccinated statewide because hospitals are not required to report this information to the state. Travis County Health Authority Dr Desmar Walkes told county commissioners and Austin city council members at a meeting on Tuesday that nearly all new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the area concerned unvaccinated people.

“It is not surprising that we have [increasing COVID-19] case, ”Lakey said. “This delta variant is spreading very quickly among individuals, and there are only a few of those individuals who have been vaccinated, and a small number of them will have serious illness. But the vast majority of people with serious illness will be unvaccinated people.

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Disclosure: The Texas Medical Association and the University of Texas System have financially supported The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations, and corporate sponsors. Financial support plays no role in the journalism of the Tribune. Find a full list of them here.