Nearly all new Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths since the end of 2020 in Los Angeles were among unvaccinated people, according the the county’s public health department.
A statement from LADPH late Thursday revealed the following: From December 7, 2020, when vaccinations first became available, to June 7, 2021, 99.6% of the County’s nearly 437,000 Covid-19 cases were individuals who were unvaccinated. There were nearly 12,900 Covid-realted hospitalizations over this same time period, 98.7% occurred among people who were unvaccinated. Of the 12,234 Covid-related deaths across L.A. County during that period, 99.8% were among unvaccinated people.
Those statistics are striking testament to the effectiveness of both the vaccines and the county’s effort to roll them out. It’s also proof of public health director Barbara Ferrer’s recent assertion that, “this is now an epidemic of the unvaccinated.” According to Ferrer, 58% of Angelenos over the age of 16 are fully vaccinated.” Among L.A. County seniors 65 and over, 75% have been fully vaccinated.
Earlier in the day, the Associated Press reported a similar trend countrywide. The outlet analyzed government data from May and determined that breakthrough infections in fully-vaccinated Americans accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 853,000 Covid-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 0.1%. It further found that only about 150 of the more than 18,000 Covid-19 deaths in that same month happened to fully-vaccinated people. That translates to approximately 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average.
Los Angeles health officials also announced on Thursday that the county is “starting to see small increases in daily hospitalizations, cases and deaths” and also the all-important 7-day test positivity rate, which has nearly doubled in the past two weeks.
Also on the rise are the number of infections related to the more transmissible Delta variant of the virus. Currently “nearly 48% of all samples sequenced were related to Delta,” said Ferrer.