Unvaccinated Americans cause increase in Covid-19 hospitalizations

AdventHealth, which operates 41 hospitals in seven mostly Midwestern and Southern states, said about 97% of the approximately 12,700 Covid-19 patients treated this year were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. Data excludes some AdventHealth hospitals managed through joint ventures.

Among fully vaccinated Covid-19 patients who have been or are in AdventHealth hospitals, many have weakened immune systems due to cancer or other conditions, said Jeffrey Kuhlman, head of quality and health. AdventHealth security.

HCA Health Inc.,

one of the largest hospital systems in the country, said its data shows that fully vaccinated people make up less than 1% of its Covid-19 patients.

“Obviously, from what we see in the natural experience of Americans vaccinated versus unvaccinated, those who are not vaccinated are almost exclusively those who are in hospitals with Covid,” said Jonathan Perlin, chief medical officer of the HCA. He noted that the data includes information reported by patients.

Some hospital executives have said they are reactivating scale-up plans to prepare for new waves of Covid-19 patients, taking now-familiar steps to free up space and free up doctors and nurses to treat seriously ill people. The job is complicated this time by the fact that hospitals are busier now than at the start of the pandemic, as those vaccinated feel comfortable seeking medical care, executives said. And hospital staff are exhausted after more than a year of battling the public health crisis.

“They are tired,” said Cam Patterson, Chancellor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which includes UAMS Little Rock Medical Center. “It’s hard for them to stay motivated.

Dr Patterson said the hospital plans to cut back on scheduled surgeries and relocate workers to treat Covid-19 patients, whose numbers have jumped over the past month. Of 51 Covid-19 patients in hospital on Saturday, 43 were not fully vaccinated. According to UAMS, two of the patients vaccinated against Covid-19 had weakened immune systems.

The hospital’s pandemic peak was 63 Covid-19 patients on January 15.

The United States records a seven-day average of 27,930 new Covid-19 cases per day, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the seven-day average for new Covid-19 hospital admissions is about 3,000 per day, a 36% increase from the previous week. Deaths have also increased after weeks of falling to an average of 238 per day over seven days.

The numbers remain well below the daily peaks of the pandemic of a seven-day average of 16,492 new Covid-19 admissions on January 9, 312,325 new cases on January 8 and 4,590 deaths on January 19.

Federal officials have warned of two trajectories for the final phase of the pandemic, with a return to normal where vaccination rates are high and with an increase in hospitalizations elsewhere.

“There is a clear message going: this is becoming an unvaccinated pandemic,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky told a White House briefing on Friday. She said more than 97% of patients entering hospitals nationwide are not vaccinated.

“Our biggest concern is that we will continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations and, unfortunately, deaths among the unvaccinated,” she said.

In Vermont, the most vaccinated state in the country, health officials said the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 has fallen from eight to less than six in the past two weeks. Authorities did not disclose the precise number of patients or their vaccination status, as they said it could compromise patient privacy. They said less than 3% of Covid-19 hospitalizations since January were from vaccinated individuals.

In North Carolina, where 53% of eligible residents are vaccinated, hospitalizations for Covid-19 have increased daily since last week to reach 536 on Thursday. More than 99% of cases and more than 98% of hospitalizations and deaths since May have been in people who were not fully vaccinated, the state said.

Data from the state of Arkansas shows that about 40% of those eligible are fully vaccinated, compared to 57% of the eligible U.S. population as a whole. The state has one of the lowest vaccination rates and the highest number of new Covid-19 cases in the country, according to CDC data, with 230 new cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days.

Sequencing first detected the Delta variant in Arkansas in early May and the mutation became the dominant strain in the state’s case samples in June, state officials said, representing the near- all cases sequenced during the last week of the month.

Hospitalizations for Covid-19 fell from 201 to 681 as of June 1, said Jennifer Dillaha, Arkansas state epidemiologist and medical director of vaccinations and outbreak response. The number of Covid-19 patients in state hospitals would double in three weeks at current rates, Dr Dillaha said, rivaling the state’s previous peak of 1,371 hospitalizations in January. From January 25 to July 13, 98% of admissions to Covid-19 hospital in Arkansas were people who were not fully vaccinated.

In Pulaski County, home to Little Rock, hospitals reported a 22% increase in the seven-day average for Covid-19 patients in the week ended July 8 compared to the previous week, according to Federal data analyzed by the University of Minnesota Covid-19 Hospitalization Tracking Project. Federal data used in the analysis does not report the vaccination status of Covid-19 hospital patients.

Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said he was working to reassure his constituents that vaccines are safe in an attempt to quell the latest wave. He said he told people he too was concerned about the vaccine as a black man who understands the history of racial inequalities in health care in the United States. He said he did his research and got the shot in March.

“This pandemic is preventable,” he said.

—Brianna Abbott contributed to this article.

Write to Melanie Evans at [email protected] and Julie Wernau at [email protected]