As cases of Covid-19 rise throughout the U.S., health officials warn that an increasing number of fully vaccinated people are being hospitalized or going to the emergency room. The concern about waning immunity against severe Covid infection comes as the Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine booster shot for all adults 18 and older.
“What we’re starting to see now is an uptick in hospitalizations among people who’ve been vaccinated but not boosted,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, said Tuesday in an interview. “It’s a significant proportion, but not the majority by any means.”
On Wednesday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported a decline in vaccine effectiveness among the elderly and residents of long-term care facilities, many of whom were the first to be eligible to be vaccinated last winter.
“Although the highest risk are those people who are unvaccinated, we are seeing an increase in emergency department visits among adults 65 and older, which are now again higher than they are for younger age groups,” Walensky said Wednesday at a White House Covid briefing.
Walensky also pointed to new data on long-term care facilities from the agency’s National Healthcare Safety Network comparing rates of Covid disease between people who are vaccinated with two doses and those who have received extra doses.
“The rate of disease is markedly lower for those who received their booster shot, demonstrating our boosters are working,” she said.
Fauci and Walensky stressed that the majority of hospitalizations and deaths are still among unvaccinated people in the U.S.
“Studies show that those who are unvaccinated continue to be more likely to be infected, more likely to be in the hospital and more likely to have severe complications from Covid-19,” Walensky said at the briefing.
The current seven-day rate of hospital admissions is about 5,300 per day, according to the CDC, and about 1,000 people in the U.S. are dying from Covid every day.
Still, it’s not clear how many breakthrough hospitalizations there are. Although the CDC has been tracking the rate of hospitalizations among fully vaccinated people, its website shows data only through Aug. 28. According to the latest data from the CDC, an unvaccinated person is at 11 times greater risk of dying from Covid than a vaccinated person.
The CDC didn’t respond to a request for new numbers.
At least 31 million people have received extra doses of a Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine, according to the CDC.
Fauci pointed to data from Israel that show a major improvement in protection against severe disease and hospitalizations in those who have had boosters compared to those who haven’t. In a study published last month, Israeli researchers found a twentyfold reduction in severe disease among those over 60 who got booster shots.
Another study last month from Israeli researchers and faculty members of Harvard Medical School found that booster doses were 92 percent effective at preventing severe disease when compared to having received a standard two-dose regimen at least five months previously.
As vaccination rates increase in the U.S., it’s expected that more vaccinated people would be hospitalized with Covid, simply because the vaccines aren’t 100 percent protective against severe illness, Fauci said.