“Large majority” of advanced cases of COVID hospitalized in SC among immunocompromised

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – Health officials describe the current increase in COVID-19 cases as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” But some fully immunized people are caught in the wave.

“The patients we see with advanced infections are almost entirely patients with chronic diseases. The vast majority are immunocompromised. An example would be a patient who received an organ transplant that must take immunosuppressants to avoid rejection, ”said Dr. Andrew Goodwin with MUSC.

Of the 189 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in all MUSC hospitals, 154 are unvaccinated, 35 are fully vaccinated. The gap between vaccinated and unvaccinated widens as the severity of the disease increases.

The rest of the state is experiencing a similar trend, according to Dr. Brannon Traxler, director of public health at DHEC.

Of the 23% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in SC who are fully vaccinated, 91.2% have an underlying disease.

In addition, of the 21 percent of COVID-related deaths in fully vaccinated individuals, 95.2 percent of those who died and were vaccinated had an underlying health status.

Traxler said these figures are further proof of the vaccine’s effectiveness and the importance of people getting the vaccine.

“[The vaccine’s] The main goal is to prevent serious illness. It’s about preventing hospitalization and death and it does an extremely good job in that regard, “said Traxler.” We know that your severity of the disease is reduced by getting fully vaccinated. you get infected you may be asymptomatic “.

Dr. Goodwin said he has heard of unvaccinated ICU patients wishing they had been vaccinated, but sadly he has to tell them it is too late.

Although Goodwin said that advanced “mild” infections can still leave people with flu symptoms for a few days, the vaccine continues to do what needed to be done by keeping most people out of the hospital.

“The lucky one is among our patients who are completely vaccinated and who don’t have immunocompromised people, it’s extraordinarily unlikely that you need even rarer hospitalization than you need critical care,” he said.

He said there is no exact time when someone should go to the hospital if they have had a persistent mild case of COVID-19, but fighting to breathe or a constant shortness of breath should be a sign of alert for people.

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