Parkland’s latest update on COVID-19 deaths provides a stark reminder about the importance of vaccination.
Earlier this year, the Parkland Health and Hospital System released data that showed that 95 percent of those who died at the hospital were unvaccinated. But as readers rightly pointed out, that data included deaths from the beginning of the pandemic; vaccines weren’t available until the following spring. Of course the percentage of unvaccinated deaths would be inflated; after all, 100 percent of the deaths before vaccines were among unvaccinated people.
The truth about unvaccinated deaths since Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J shots were made widely available supports the argument that vaccines are the best bet for preventing serious illness. I asked Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation CEO Steve Miff and Dr. Brett Moran, Parkland’s chief medical information officer, to dig deeper into the numbers.
As of Wednesday, there had been 865 COVID-19 related deaths at Parkland since March 2020, when the coronavirus reached North Texas. Of those, 631 patients died on or after March 1 of last year, when vaccinations were considered widely available to the public. The vast majority of patients had not received the vaccine: 85 percent, or 534 people, had no vaccination at all; 13 percent, or 85 people, had one dose; and 2 percent, 15 people, had two doses. Just one person died from COVID-19 after receiving a booster shot, which you can see in the chart below.
Starting from the point when vaccines were made available, just 2 percent of all COVID-19 deaths were among patients considered fully vaccinated, according to Parkland’s data. Moran did note that vaccination status was not the only factor that contributed to the deaths. “There were obviously a set of underlying various medical condition and co-morbidities across these populations and other factors that could have contributed to risk and mortality,” Moran says.
Experts have preached the importance of vaccination for months, so most of this data is nothing new. But it is important to see how vaccines have protected the vast majority of those who have received them. Even as cases go down across the country and in North Texas, there is always the possibility of a new variant and increased infection. Health officials continue to stress that it is incredibly important—especially for those with underlying health conditions—to receive the vaccine.
In Dallas County, 69 percent of the population has received at least one dose and 59 percent have received two doses. But there are still pockets that are largely unvaccinated. Last month, MIff noted that 94.2 percent of children under 10 were unvaccinated, 65.6 percent of kids 10-14 were unvaccinated, and 45.9 percent of teenagers 15-17 remain unvaccinated. No children under five are eligible for vaccination, though the FDA and Pfizer are nearing approval for that cohort.
Though cases are plummeting, Dallas County Health Director Dr. Phil Huang urges caution; there are still so many unknowns ahead.
“We have seen people relax when the numbers go down and they tried to go back to normal prematurely,” he says. “But then they bounce back up, so there needs to be some new normal.”
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