- covid-19 vaccines are effective at preventing severe disease, experts say
- despite the rise of the Delta variant, still, 97% of people who are hospitalized or killed by this virus are unvaccinated
Health experts are reiterating that vaccines are effective in the ways that matter most: preventing severe disease, hospitalization, and death says an article on CNN.
Vaccines effective
The Delta variant has “pretty much taken over” in the US, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and a member of the US Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee. But it’s clear the vaccines work against the Delta variant, too, he said.
“Despite the rise of the Delta variant, still 97% of people who are hospitalized or killed by this virus are unvaccinated,” Offit said. “If the Delta variant were escaping, essentially, immunity induced by vaccination, then you should have seen a rise in people who are vaccinated, but nonetheless were still hospitalized and killed. And that hasn’t happened.”
‘Unvaccinated’ at risk
Yet the pace of inoculations is slowing, with less than half of the US population — 48.5%, per the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — fully vaccinated. And it’s the communities with lower vaccination rates that are at risk.
“If you are unvaccinated, the risk is incredibly high — and maybe in some areas higher than it’s ever been,” said Dr. Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, adding people are acting a “little more carefree and lackadaisical,” raising the chance of exposure.
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Source: CNN
