COVID-19 kills more than 6,200 unvaccinated people in Pa., claims lives of only 213 who got the jab: state da - PennLive

Nearly 6,500 people have died of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania since vaccination became widely available in January, with 97% of those either unvaccinated or less than fully vaccinated, Pennsylvania officials announced Tuesday.

Conversely, the virus has killed only 213 fully vaccinated people, or 3% of those who died, the state said.

Officials said the incidence of death among the less than fully vaccinated was 7.9 times as high as the death incidence among the fully vaccinated.

Officials said they hope the data will persuade holdouts to get vaccinated.

“Every person who chooses to get vaccinated brings us one step closer to moving past the pandemic,” Acting State Secretary of Health Alison Beam said.

The Pennsylvania Health Department offered its most complete look so far at deaths, hospitalizations and cases comparing those who unvaccinated and those who have had the vaccine, often called “breakthrough” cases.

Beam said hospitalizations and intensive care cases are similarly concentrated among people who aren’t fully vaccinated.

Of nearly 35,000 people admitted to hospitals in Pennsylvania with COVID-19 as the main reason since January, 95% were unvaccinated or less than fully vaccinated. Fully vaccinated people accounted for only 1,820 hospitalizations.

The figures cover a period from early January to about a week ago. They come from data the state recently began requiring hospitals to report. A little more than half of all hospitals provided the numbers, although those hospitals account for 80% of hospital beds in the state, Beam said.

Asked why some hospitals didn’t report the data, Beam said hospitals are “front line responders” straining to care for the ill.

Dr. Micheal Ripchinski, the chief clinical officer for Penn Medicine Lancaster General Hospital, said the average age of unvaccinated patients there is 56, compared to 71 for vaccinated people.

He said the vaccinated patients tend to recover much more easily and with less need for care. Further, he said vaccinated people admitted to the hospital tend to have weakened immune systems because of other illness. Often, COVID-19 isn’t main the main reason they were admitted, he said.

With Pennsylvania in the midst of a surge in new infections and hospitalizations that began this summer, Ripchinski expressed concern about what he called a low vaccination rate in Lancaster County, and worry that hospitals will become overwhelmed.

“As the country united after the tragedy of 9/11, I hope that we can join together again to get vaccinated, to keep our families safe, to keep our friends out of the hospital, and to ensure healthier communities,” he said.

The health department said since Jan. 1, 94% of the state’s reported COVID-19 cases involved those who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated. Among the 639,729 positive cases, the state identified 35,389 individuals who are fully vaccinated (6% of the cases).

“The vast majority of COVID-19 related cases, hospitalizations and deaths occurring in Pennsylvania, since January, are occurring in those who are not vaccinated,” Beam said.

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