Vaccines Saved 1 Million Lives in 2021
Deaths could have been as high as 20,000 daily
“Our findings highlight the ongoing tragedy of preventable death and hospitalization occurring among unvaccinated Americans,” the report stated.
“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 group reported.
The Commonwealth Fund is a philanthropic group that supports research to improve healthcare quality and access. The report was done by evaluating the effect of the vaccine rollout and simulating the pandemic trajectory if no vaccinations were given. The simulated outcomes of total infections, hospitalizations, and deaths were compared to the actual pandemic in the United States and vaccinations that occurred between Dec. 12, 2020, and Nov. 30, 2021.
The model incorporated the transmission dynamics of previous variants other than Omicron, which was just beginning to appear as the analysis was completed.
“The majority of these averted deaths and hospitalizations would have occurred during the late summer and early autumn, as the highly contagious Delta variant began to surge in southern states and spread to other parts of the United States,” the report states.
For all the public health and political failings of the pandemic response, the U.S. vaccination program campaign begun under the Trump administration and continued under President Biden profoundly altered the trajectory of the pandemic.
“Even with only about 60% of Americans vaccinated to date, the nation has dodged a massive wave of COVID-19 deaths that would have started as the Delta variant took hold in August 2021,” the report stated. “Our estimates suggest that in 2021 alone, the vaccination program prevented a potentially catastrophic flood of patients requiring hospitalization. It is difficult to imagine how hospitals would have coped had they been faced with 10 million people sick enough to require admission.”
Vaccines also prevented 35 million cases of initial infection with SARS-CoV-2. In addition to reducing infections, hospitalization, and death, vaccines prevented some unknown number of long COVID cases marked by prolonged symptoms.
“As immunity wanes and breakthrough infections continue to emerge, it is clear we must vaccinate (and give booster shots) to many more people — building on the tremendous, though mostly invisible, successes the U.S. vaccination program has accomplished thus far,” the report concludes.
REFERENCE
- Schneider EC, Shah A, Sah P, et al. The U.S. COVID-19 vaccination program at one year: How many deaths and hospitalizations were averted? The Commonwealth Fund. Published Dec. 14, 2021. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2021/dec/us-covid-19-vaccination-program-one-year-how-many-deaths-and
COVID-19 vaccines prevented an estimated 1 million deaths and 10 million hospitalizations in the United States in 2021, according to a new modeling study by the Commonwealth Fund.
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