According to reports, health data coming out of Maryland are raising growing concerns about the declining effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, especially against the Delta variant.
What are the details?
Although the data still show that most state residents hospitalized with the virus are not vaccinated or are partially vaccinated, fully vaccinated people are beginning to account for a larger share.
“Infections, illnesses and hospitalizations are rising rapidly among fully vaccinated people, according to data from the Maryland Department of Health and new research,” WBAL-TV reported Tuesday.
The media said the trend has led some public health experts to argue that “it’s time to rethink reflection” on the message of vaccines to point out that they won’t necessarily prevent you from getting sick, but will increase your chances of survival.
“Over the past three months in Anne Arundel County, about 30% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are completely vaccinated,” the report states. “There is a similar period and trend in neighboring Howard County, where health officials said between 30% and 40% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are completely vaccinated.”
Facts: More people vaccinated among hospitalized Marylanders
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Dr. Nilesh Kalyanaraman, Anne Arundel County Health Officer, blamed the declining vaccine efficacy trend along with the increase in the Delta variant.
“Because Delta spreads more easily and causes more serious illnesses, we see some hospitalizations,” Kalyanaraman explained.
Is there a national trend among vaccinated people?
Although Maryland data is currently framed as atypical value, there are indicators that are part of a national trend.
Public health experts and major media outlets have for weeks flooded the American public with the line that unvaccinated individuals currently account for virtually all COVID-19 hospitalizations, which typically cite a figure between 95% and 98%.
But, as Daniel Horowitz of The Blaze pointed out earlier this month, those figures were drawn from a 6-month analysis produced by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If we look more closely at the monthly figures, we can see that the percentage of hospitalizations among fully vaccinated people has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the year.
In June alone, fully vaccinated people accounted for 16% of the country’s COVID-19 hospitalizations.
“Given the rapid acceleration in declining immunity, research minds would like to know what that number will be like by September,” Horowitz noted.
“Good reasons to get vaccinated”
While acknowledging the new data as worrisome, Maryland health experts continue to encourage residents to get vaccinated as a way to boost their immune response to the virus.
“It is critical that the vaccine decreases the chances of hospitalization,” Kalyanaraman told WABL. “And it also turns out that it is very likely that long covets, these persistent symptoms, will occur in the vaccine, so there are many good reasons to get vaccinated.”