What we can learn from vaccinated covid deaths
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 May 2022
⏱️ 20 minutes
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Summary
Nearly 1 million people in the United States have died of covid-19, and the toll is growing among vaccinated people as the virus gets harder and harder to dodge. Today on Post Reports, what we can learn from looking at vaccinated deaths.
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According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccinated people made up a shocking 42 percent of covid deaths in January and February during the peak of the omicron surge, compared with 23 percent during delta’s surge in September. Vaccines are still highly effective at preventing illness and death. But as more and more highly contagious variants arise, it becomes harder for elderly people, the immunocompromised and those whose vaccines are wearing off to avoid infection.
Health reporter Fenit Nirappil wanted to dispel the myth that only unvaccinated people are dying of covid — and he wanted to put names and faces to some of the hundreds of thousands of people who died this past winter. Today on Post Reports, a look at what happened during the winter surge, and what we can learn from it as the virus continues to mutate.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I knew I was going to get a lot of pushback for this story and I did end up getting a lot |
| 0:05.4 | of criticism and specifically people were worried that this is going to arm anti-vaxxers who |
| 0:10.8 | are going to point to the increasing share of people who are vaccinated and dying as |
| 0:15.9 | evidence that vaccines are pointless. |
| 0:18.6 | Phenetneuropil covers coronavirus for the post. |
| 0:21.6 | And in recent months almost every time you write a story about people dying up COVID. |
| 0:26.5 | We get commenters, I get people on Twitter, I get people emailing me all saying that, |
| 0:32.1 | oh this virus is just affecting the unvaccinated people now. |
| 0:36.3 | It's just the unvaccinated people who are dying so who cares. |
| 0:39.6 | I'm going to set aside just how callous that premise is and just point out it's not true. |
| 0:49.0 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 0:52.8 | I'm routine powers. |
| 0:54.8 | This Tuesday, May 10th. |
| 0:57.0 | This week we're hovering around a number that is unfathomable. |
| 1:01.2 | One million Americans dead from COVID. |
| 1:04.0 | We're expected to hit that milestone any day now. |
| 1:07.3 | And in recent months the people dying are increasingly people who are vaccinated. |
| 1:12.9 | This doesn't mean that the vaccines don't work. |
| 1:15.5 | It's just that so many people are getting COVID now that even that small percentage who |
| 1:20.2 | still get severely sick is a lot of people. |
| 1:25.0 | Today we're talking about some of those vaccinated people who have died of COVID and the risks |
| 1:30.4 | of going back to normal. |
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