Despite the country’s high vaccination rate, U.S. breaks record with more than 145,000 Covid-19 hospitalizations.
QUICK FACTS:
- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has claimed that “all FDA-approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines provide substantial protection against COVID-19 hospitalization.”
- Following this guidance, 75% of Americans have received an experimental Covid-19 vaccine, 62.6% being fully vaccinated, according to Google data.
- However, even with three-quarters of its total population vaccinated, the U.S. is now reporting more than 145,000 Covid-19 hospitalizations as of Tuesday, breaking a new record, The Washington Post reports.
- “Tuesday’s total of 145,982 people in U.S. hospitals with covid-19, which includes 4,462 children, passed the record of 142,273 set on Jan. 14, 2021, during the previous peak of the pandemic in this country,” notes The Post.
- The high vaccination rate among the American population not being able to curb Covid-19 hospitalizations raises questions about the vaccine’s efficacy.
- The Post predicts that “current [hospitalization] numbers may seem small in just a few weeks. Disease modelers are predicting total hospitalizations in the 275,000 to 300,000 range when the peak is reached, probably later this month,” even as vaccination rates continue to rise.
U.S. VACCINE RATE:
HEALTHCARE SYSTEM “UNDER EXTREME STRAIN,” EVEN WITH HIGH VACCINATION RATE:
- “Our systems and personnel are under extreme strain and I’m not sure how long we can sustain it,” Russell Buhr, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, said in an email to The Post.
BACKGROUND:
- The Post reports that “[a]s of Monday there were 23,524 covid patients in ICUs nationwide, compared with a record 29,591 on Jan. 12, 2021. About 1,200 hospitals—just under a quarter—reported a critical staffing shortage this week, and another 120 reported anticipating a staffing crisis within a week, according to data kept by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”
- High vaccination rates in the U.S. have not been able to keep the country from experiencing “dire shortages, with 29 percent of hospitals experiencing a crisis and 32 expecting one this week.”
- The worst-hit states are Vermont and Rhode Island, where more than 60% of the hospitals anticipate staffing crises this week, according to The Post, even though the two states are among the most vaccinated in the country: Vermont at 90.4%, and Rhode Island at 90.7%.
VERMONT VACCINE RATE:
RHODE ISLAND VACCINE RATE:
