Unvaccinated Americans Are 11 Times More Likely To Die Of COVID, According To New Reports

The Biden administration is taking vaccines seriously. This week, a new rule was announced that requires companies of 100 or more people to mandate vaccines or regular testing against COVID-19. It’s a move that will impact more than 80 million Americans and will hopefully raise the nation’s inoculation levels, as about half of the country remains unvaccinated despite widely available vaccines and a number of studies touting their safety and effectiveness.

Biden has fired back at Republican governors who have vowed to fight the mandate, and on Friday a new study certainly gave the mandates more credence. According to multiple reports, federal health officials released data from a handful of new studies that shows just how effective the vaccines are against the novel coronavirus, including the more contagious Delta variant that has been crowding hospitals in recent months.

Putting aside the truckload of data that suggests vaccines limit hospitalization and severe symptoms in the still-rare breakthrough cases, the vaccines make it much less likely you will die from COVID. In fact, as the New York Times laid out, the biggest takeaway from the findings is that unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die of coronavirus than anyone who is vaccinated.

Three studies that drew data from different U.S. regions evaluated the protective power of the vaccines. One looked at more than 600,000 virus cases in 13 states, representing about one quarter of the U.S. population, between April and July, and concluded that individuals who were not fully vaccinated were far more susceptible to infection and death from the virus.

They were 4.5 times more likely than vaccinated individuals to become infected, 10 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 11 times more likely to die from the coronavirus, the study found.

Vaccine protection against hospitalization and death remained strong even when the Delta variant was the dominant form of infection. But the vaccines’ effectiveness in preventing infection dropped from 91 percent to 78 percent, the study found.

The news of vaccine efficacy in the face of the Delta variant is certainly good for those who are already vaccinated, especially with uncertainty about the need for a booster program. But interestingly, the findings also boost the logic behind vaccine mandates in the first place. It’s important to note that Biden’s mandate plan is through OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The measures are framed as a workplace safety concern, and studies like these show clearly how much safer vaccinated workplaces are compared to the alternative.

Rather than adding fuel to the culture war, Friday’s studies are all about science. And right now it’s more and more clear that vaccines, and strongly encouraging their use through legislation, are necessary to keep as many people safe from disease as possible.

[via NY Times]

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