grim statistics, Dr. Gregory Poland, who directs the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn says.
“The public often hears about the lives lost,” Poland says. “This study is talking about the lives saved by vaccinations, which is important for people to hear.”
The findings, published online Aug. 18 in the journal Health Affairs, are based on the Bloomberg COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker, which has data on vaccine doses administered in each state, and The New York Times’ COVID-19 in the U.S. database, which tracks COVID-19 deaths and other trends, state by state.
Gupta and her colleagues created mathematical models to estimate the number of COVID-19 deaths that would have occurred in the absence of vaccines between Dec. 21, 2020, and May 9, 2021.
On the state level, New York averted the greatest number of deaths, by the researchers’ estimate: nearly 12 for every 10,000 adult residents. Hawaii, meanwhile, saw the smallest reduction, avoiding about one death per 10,000 adults.
Vaccinations also prevented an estimated 3 million cases of COVID-19 by early May, the researchers calculated. “The bigger impact, though, was on deaths,” Gupta shares.
Death, however, is not the only bad outcome of COVID-19. The study did not look at hospitalizations, but Poland says vaccinations presumably prevented many severe infections that would land people in the hospital — as well as cases of “long” COVID.
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The current findings are from a period before the Delta variant took hold in the United States. Since July, “breakthrough” infections among fully vaccinated people have been rising.
Still, “breakthrough infections happen with every vaccine,” Poland notes, and they do not mean inoculations “aren’t working.”
He stresses that the COVID-19 vaccines have remained highly protective against hospitalization and death: The vast majority of Americans who are ending up in the hospital or dying from the infection are unvaccinated.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines’ effectiveness against hospitalization through July. Overall, they have been about 85% effective — and 90% effective among people who do not have conditions that substantially compromise the immune system.
If anything, Gupta says, the Delta variant makes vaccination even more imperative.