Vaccinated make up nearly 39% of omicron deaths in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — For the reason that availability of the vaccine, these with no shot have made up the best portion of people that have died from COVID. That hasn’t modified. However for the reason that begin of the omicron variant, the proportion of vaccinated people who find themselves dying has gone up considerably.

The Utah Division of Well being stories that for the reason that begin of the “omicron interval” on December 21, 2021, 844 individuals have tragically misplaced their lives to COVID.

Of these individuals, almost 39% had been vaccinated. A major improve in comparison with the 19% of deaths totally vaccinated people made up earlier than omicron.

“Definitely, there was the next danger of individuals getting contaminated with omicron and going to the hospital with omicron,” mentioned Dr. Leisha Nolan, the state epidemiologist. “We need to be truthful that the vaccine will not be good. There are some those that, even when they do the proper factor, can get a foul an infection.”

Nolan says that whereas the proportion of vaccinated individuals going to the hospital and dying from COVID is up this yr, “I do suppose it’s nonetheless actually necessary to level out that the vaccine has labored properly.”

The truth is, Nolan says they discovered that those that haven’t had a shot had been 3.6 occasions extra prone to die from an omicron an infection than those that had been totally vaccinated. And the unvaccinated had been 15 occasions extra prone to die than these with a booster shot.

“Definitely, it’s not what we might need. We would like it to be 1,000 occasions, proper? Like we would like the vaccine to be as robust as potential,” she mentioned. “However it’s nonetheless fairly good, and even throughout omicron, we noticed that.”

Nolan says our our bodies should be reminded methods to battle off an an infection and that’s the place a booster shot helps.

“I feel proper now we’re nonetheless making an attempt to know how lengthy individuals could be protected and the way lengthy their our bodies bear in mind.”

For the final couple of months, we’ve had a little bit of a break from COVID, Nolan famous. The final six weeks, instances have been low. However she mentioned they’re keeping track of a rise in infections and hospitalizations.

She expects instances will proceed to rise within the coming weeks. The well being division recommends these older than 50 and people who find themselves immunocompromised obtain a second booster shot.

However Nolan mentioned the chance will not be excessive for wholesome individuals who have acquired the vaccine. She mentioned she desires individuals to nonetheless have the ability to take pleasure in themselves however to take affordable precautions to not get sick, like carrying a masks in crowded areas.

“We’re going to have to simply accept this virus goes to be with us for fairly some time,” Nolan mentioned. “Hopefully the vaccines are nonetheless going to have good safety so it may be extra of a nuisance and a problem in our life, [rather] than a complete life-changing factor prefer it was the primary yr and a half, two years.”