More than 800,000 Americans have died from COVID, and 28% of adults still remain unvaccinated.
This month marks one year that the COVID-19 vaccine shots were first distributed, but according to recent figures, 28% of adults still remain unvaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. has just hit a new milestone with more than 800,000 Americans who have lost their lives from COVID-19, with more than half those deaths occurring during 2021, according to a report by The Commonwealth Fund.
More than 163,000 deaths could have been prevented by the vaccination since vaccines became widely available in June, the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated, CBS News reported.
In the analysis, the authors noted that “most of these preventable deaths occurred well after vaccines became available.”
“In September 2021 alone, approximately 51,000 people's lives likely would have been saved if they had chosen to get vaccinated,” the authors wrote. “In November 2021, over 29,000 COVID-19 deaths likely would have been averted with vaccines.”
The Commonwealth Fund released their study on Tuesday, citing that in the absence of a vaccination program, there would have been approximately 1.1 million additional COVID-19 deaths and more than 10.3 million additional COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. by November 2021.
The study also concluded that if no one had been vaccinated, daily deaths from COVID-19 could have jumped to as high as 21,000 per day — nearly 5.2 times the level of the record peak of more than 4,000 deaths per day recorded in January 2021, the report said.
The CDC estimated on Tuesday that approximately 3% of cases in the U.S. were caused by the Omicron variant. And, health authorities in several European nations, including Denmark and the U.K. have warned that the variant is on track to quickly dominate infections there, CBS reported.
“We have 1,100 deaths everyday still and we can’t be cavalier about the fact that we are losing so many lives from this right now," Dr. Rochelle Wallensky, Director of the Centers for Disease and Education said.
More than 90% of U.S. counties have now climbed back into "substantial" or "high" transmission of the disease. These are the levels at which the CDC has urged all Americans to wear masks in public while indoors, CBS reported.
As cases rise, many countries may be reevaluating their COVID-19 restrictions that were lifted. New York has reinforced its indoor mask rule. And, on Monday, California officials announced plans to enforce a statewide mask mandate, whether a person is vaccinated or not.
