US covid deaths the lowest since March 2020
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/u-s-covid-19-deaths-fall-to-lowest-point-since-march-2020/ar-AAKHSjW?ocid=msedgdhpU.S. Covid-19 Deaths Fall to Lowest Point Since March 2020
Jon Kamp, Talal Ansari 1 hr ago
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The average number of daily Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. has fallen to the lowest point in more than a year, a fresh sign that vaccinations are lessening the worst effects of the pandemic.
The seven-day average for newly reported deaths fell to 432 on Thursday, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data collected by Johns Hopkins University. The figure hasn’t been this low since late March 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, the data show.
The current average marks the lowest point for average daily deaths after any surge during the pandemic, falling below a prior low of about 520 daily deaths early last summer, the data show. It follows a sharp drop in newly reported Covid-19 cases, with the seven-day average falling below 20,000 this week for the first time since last March. On Thursday, the average was 15,030.
“This milestone reinforces that the U.S. is in the homestretch of the epidemic, thanks to vaccinations,” said Andrew Brouwer, an assistant research scientist in epidemiology at the University of Michigan.
More than half of the U.S. adult population has reached full-vaccination status, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For those 65 and older, that figure stands at 75%.
The high rates of vaccinations among elderly people, who are most likely to die from Covid-19 infections, have helped push the number of deaths lower. And the steady decline in newly reported cases indicates that deaths, a lagging indicator, will continue to shrink.
“Vaccinations are extremely effective against severe Covid disease and death and are now widely available,” Dr. Brouwer said.
Hospitalizations have also been consistently falling, with the latest data posted by the Department of Health and Human Services showing 23,240 Covid-19 patients in hospitals across the U.S., down from 39,810 a month ago and a high of 142,273 in mid-January.
Doctors say treatment protocols for Covid-19 patients have steadily improved, and may be saving lives. But the starkest benefit is likely the vaccine. Four out of every five Covid-19 deaths have been in people over 65, and that population is now significantly shielded by inoculations.
For people who aren’t vaccinated and get infected, drug treatments called monoclonal antibodies have helped patients recover faster and prevented them from developing severe cases, doctors say. In clinical trials, the drugs reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 70% in people with mild-to-moderate symptoms.
The actual count of recent deaths may actually be lower. There have been several incidents of states catching up with backlogs in reporting, which have inflated recent death counts. States sometimes don’t backdate these deaths to when they occurred. Kentucky on June 1 said there were 260 previously unreported deaths found during an audit. Maryland and Oklahoma have also recently posted revisions.
These recent backlogged mortality reports have made it difficult to measure the portion of cases that become deaths, which is another way to track how vaccines are turning the tide. Still, this ratio—which the Journal measures with a 28-day gap between cases and death to cover what experts say is a likely reporting gap between the two metrics—had recently trended lower.
Covid-19 shots are also bearing fruit in other countries that are deep into their mass-vaccination campaigns. In the U.K., where half of adults are fully vaccinated and another quarter are awaiting their second dose, daily deaths have fallen to levels not seen since early March 2020, when the pandemic was just taking hold.
The seven-day average of new Covid-19 deaths in the U.K. was 7.7 Thursday, according to government data, which compares with a peak of more than 1,200 daily deaths reported during the country’s most recent wave of infection in January. Public-health officials estimate vaccines have averted 13,000 deaths this year so far and prevented more than 39,000 hospitalizations.
Despite the good news in the U.S., there are regional variations in Covid-19 metrics that could affect the pandemic in coming months.
Although 52% of American adults are fully vaccinated, the percentage varies by state. At the top of the list is Vermont, where nearly 57% of the entire population is fully vaccinated. At the bottom is Mississippi, where 27.5% of the population has been inoculated.
Last summer saw new Covid-19 cases surge across parts of the South and Southwest amid reopenings and rising temperatures that pushed more people to the air-conditioned indoors. Some epidemiologists and public-health officials worry that lower vaccination rates in the South could lead to a rise in infections this summer, though few expect case counts to reach as high as last year, given the broader vaccine uptake nationally.
Covid-19 also continues to rage in less-vaccinated parts of the world, indicating that, globally, the pandemic is far from over. High infection rates world-wide also create a continuing risk of new and dangerous Covid-19 variants, epidemiologists say.
Scientists and public-health officials in the U.K. are concerned about the rapid spread there of a variant first detected in India and given the name Delta by the World Health Organization.
British data suggest that two doses of vaccine provide substantial protection against the variant but that people awaiting their second shot may be less well protected against infection. Studies have suggested that vaccines available in the U.S. protect against variants of the coronavirus that have emerged, although perhaps not as strongly as against early strains. Health officials and vaccine makers are exploring ways to prolong immunity and better protect people.
Write to Jon Kamp at jon.kamp@wsj.com and Talal Ansari at Talal.Ansari@wsj.com
