As US vax rollout stalls, Covid still kills more than guns, cars and flu combined

Even with half of the US vaccinated, Covid-19 continues to kill people faster than guns, car crashes and influenza combined, according to a review of mortality data. 

The situation has improved dramatically since January, when Covid-19 deaths outpaced heart disease and cancer as the country’s top killer. Still, for the month of June, coronavirus was responsible for 337 deaths a day. For comparison, the historic average deaths from gunshots, car crashes and complications from the flu add up to 306 a day. 

“The sad reality is that despite our progress, we’re still losing people to this virus,” Jeff Zients, the White House pandemic response coordinator, said at a press briefing last week. “Which is especially tragic given that, at this point, it is unnecessary and preventable. Virtually all Covid-19 hospitalisations and deaths in the United States are now occurring among unvaccinated individuals.” 

After 10 weeks of global declines in Covid-19 deaths, the highly transmissible Delta variant is driving a new uptick. In the US, health officials have warned that a similar reversal may be under way: daily cases have doubled from a low point last month and hospitalisations are rising again.  

Preliminary data from several states over the last few months suggest that 99.5% of deaths from Covid-19 in the United States were in unvaccinated people.

—  US Centers for Disease Control director Rochelle Walensky

Vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna prevent up to 96% of hospitalisations and deaths from the Delta variant, according to recent data from the US, UK and Israel. The protections are even greater when taking into account the effects of reduced transmission in well-vaccinated communities. 

“Preliminary data from several states over the last few months suggest that 99.5% of deaths from Covid-19 in the United States were in unvaccinated people,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky reported on Thursday. “Those deaths were preventable by a simple, safe shot.”

The US vaccination campaign, however, has stalled. Once the envy of the world for its swift rollout, the country has since been overtaken by more than 20 countries that now have better vaccine coverage. The EU and China, which are now administering shots at daily rates of about four million and 10 million doses respectively, are poised to blow past the US in the next two weeks. 

Not only have US vaccinations slowed to a trickle — just 530,000 a day, on average — but the gap between the most and least vaccinated counties in the US continues to widen. That’s left some communities especially vulnerable to Delta. For unvaccinated people living in low-vaccination communities, the threat posed by Covid-19 is about as bad as it has ever been.

Covid-19 vaccinations in the US have already prevented about 279,000 deaths and 1.25 million hospitalisations, according to an analysis published last week by Yale University and the Commonwealth Fund. The report suggests that without vaccines, Covid-19 would still be topping cancer and heart disease as the leading cause of death.

The sudden dominance of the Delta variant has surprised health officials around the world. In the Netherlands, cases jumped by more than 500% in the past week. The UK and Russia are reporting the highest transmission rates since January. Israel reinstated its mask mandate. Sydney and Melbourne are in lockdown again. 

“The Delta variant is ripping around the world at a scorching pace, driving a spike in cases and deaths,” World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing on Monday. “The pandemic is not over — anywhere.”

— Bloomberg News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com