Unvaccinated people account for 94% of new coronavirus cases in Pennsylvania this year, state health officials say

The vast majority of Pennsylvanians who contracted the coronavirus in 2021 have not been vaccinated, state officials said on Tuesday, releasing new data on the infections that they say should persuade all eligible residents to do so. vaccinate.

Until the beginning of September, there have been nearly 640,000 positive cases of COVID-19 statewide, nearly 35,000 hospitalizations and nearly 6,500 deaths. But 97% of deaths were in unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people, according to state data, as were 95% of hospitalizations and 94% of confirmed cases.

“The vaccine continues to do its job even against newer variants, including the delta variant,” Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam said at a press conference. “No vaccine is 100% effective, so we can expect post-vaccination cases. It’s also important to remember that COVID-19 vaccines were developed to help people stay out of hospital and prevent death, not just [avoid] positive cases.

It was the first time that the state provided data on cases among vaccinated people; data is statewide, including Philadelphia. The Inquirer reported in June that Pennsylvania was not following the so-called breakthrough cases, six months after the vaccine was launched. New Jersey and Delaware were already doing this, as were other states and even Philadelphia. They also reported that the vast majority of newly confirmed cases were in unvaccinated people.

The Department of Health preferred to focus on providing other coronavirus data, a spokesperson told The Inquirer at the time.

Since then, however, the situation has changed, due to the emergence of the highly transmissible delta variant, against which vaccines may be slightly less effective. While fully vaccinated people are still less likely to contract the virus and much less likely to be hospitalized or die if infected, scientists have found that they can spread the delta.

New data from Pennsylvania showed the case rate among vaccinated residents was 819 per 100,000 and the death rate was 7 per 100,000 – making unvaccinated people seven times more likely to be infected. and eight times more likely to die than those who are vaccinated. The state has not published a post-vaccination hospitalization rate.

It is also not complete, as only 55% of hospitals and 69% of acute care facilities reported the required information. The Department of Health recently ordered all hospitals to start reporting the data, which is up to date Tuesday evening, and is working with those who have not yet complied or do not have the capacity to compile the data, this which, according to Beam, requires “multiple systems.

Beam said his department will continue to work with hospitals to improve data reporting and in the future provide more detailed information, such as the link between breakthrough cases and the vaccine each patient received before being infected. .

The data will be updated at least once a month, she said.

“The data we have shows once again that even as the more transmissible delta variant becomes more prevalent, COVID vaccines are safe, effective, and help prevent serious illness and death,” Beam said.

READ MORE: COVID-19 cases in Philly area stabilize, but health community “braces for rise” as fall approaches

With the emergence of the Delta, case rates have increased over the summer but remain much lower in Pennsylvania than in most other states, which experts say is likely due to the relatively high vaccination rates of the State. Still, health officials have warned of the continued increase – including among children – and urged the 35% of residents 12 and older who are not fully vaccinated to get vaccinated.

The seven-day average of new confirmed cases in the state has been above 3,000 a day for several days. As of Tuesday, more than 3,700 new cases were recorded statewide.

“Our healthcare teams are tired,” said Michael Ripchinski, clinical director of Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health. “They are exhausted. Our businesses are struggling to recover. Our teachers and students want to keep our schools open. Vaccines help us get by. Vaccines allow us to get back to normal.

Major hospitals in the state are reporting an increase in the number of unvaccinated coronavirus patients, according to the Department of Health.

“In the last few weeks, we have seen up to 19 times more unvaccinated patients aged 50 and under admitted to UPMC hospitals compared to vaccinated patients,” said Dr. Donald Yealy, physician- chief at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

At Penn Medicine, Ripchinski said, unvaccinated people tend to be more likely to end up in intensive care and stay in hospital longer. Fahad Khalid, chief of hospital medicine at Penn State Hospital, said about half of unvaccinated patients need intensive care, up from less than a quarter in previous outbreaks.

Doctors said newly vaccinated people admitted to their hospitals tend to be immunocompromised or have mild cases and are admitted for an entirely different reason.

“When fully vaccinated people develop symptoms of COVID-19 during a breakthrough infection, they tend to be less severe symptoms,” Ripchinski said. “Those who are vaccinated are much less likely to be hospitalized or die.”

The groundbreaking number of cases in Pennsylvania is in line with those reported nationally and in neighboring states, which have remained relatively constant since the start of the summer.

In New Jersey, 0.35% of the more than 5.3 million fully vaccinated residents have tested positive for the virus as of Aug. 30, state officials said at a press briefing on Monday.

Of them, 386 were hospitalized, they said, and 97 died. They represent 0.007% and 0.002% of people vaccinated, respectively.

Meanwhile, in Delaware, 0.45% of its nearly 506,000 fully vaccinated residents had confirmed cases of the virus as of September 10.

Only 50 of these breakthrough infections resulted in hospitalizations, the state’s Public Health Division said, and 25 immunized people have died, although the virus may not have been the cause of death in all. case.

For the week of August 30 to September 5, 87% of Delaware’s confirmed cases and 90% of its virus-related hospitalizations were in unvaccinated people, the state said.

“The number of revolutionary cases has increased over time, in Philadelphia and across the country. Epidemiologically, this is an understood phenomenon that occurs when the majority of the population is vaccinated, ”said Philadelphia Department of Health spokesperson James Garrow, noting that the vast majority of cases of the disease. city ​​remain among those who have not been vaccinated. “More people vaccinated means more opportunities for revolutionary cases. “

“What is not taken into account in our breakthrough counts is gravity,” he added. “It is understood that breakthrough cases tend to be milder than unvaccinated cases.”

The delta variant has prompted an increase in tests, which have emerged in the Philly area to include many vaccinated people wanting to know if their sniffles were a cold or a breakthrough case. Yet breakthrough cases can also be underreported, as those vaccinated may generally be less likely to be tested for COVID-19.

READ MORE: COVID-19 cases among school-aged children in Pennsylvania are 10 times higher than they were last year

The CDC only requires states to report hospitalizations and deaths among those vaccinated.

The state was one of only three that couldn’t provide that data, according to an August national analysis from the New York Times. That analysis, through early August, showed hospitalizations and revolutionary deaths were up to 5% or 6% of those reported in some states and less than 1% in others.

Announcing the groundbreaking case data from Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Beam said, “I hope this data encourages anyone who has not yet been vaccinated to talk to their doctor about the possibility of getting the vaccine as soon as possible. . “

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Pennsylvania did not publish post-vaccination case and death rates, and incorrectly reported the post-vaccination case rate in Delaware.