COVID-19 deaths are few among vaccinated residents in Fresno, Valley. Here’s the data
The wide majority of people who are dying from COVID-19 or landing in hospitals with serious cases of coronavirus in the central San Joaquin Valley are those who have not been vaccinated against the virus.
Dr. Stephanie Koch-Kumar, senior epidemiologist with the Fresno County Department of Public Health, reported that state data indicates about 2,150 potential “breakthrough” coronavirus cases in the county among people who are fully vaccinated.
That’s just under 6% of almost 36,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases reported in Fresno County since mid-January, the earliest date at which the first vaccine recipients would be two weeks beyond completing their shots.
The first coronavirus vaccines became available statewide, including the central San Joaquin Valley, in mid-December. A person is considered “fully vaccinated” two weeks after completing their second dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or a single shot of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson product.
Fresno County health officials have not yet compiled information about post-vaccination hospitalizations or deaths from COVID-19. But Dr. Rais Vohra, the county’s interim health officer, has said recently that “the vast majority” of hospitalizations and deaths are among people who have not gotten their shots and described the current trend as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
In neighboring Tulare County, about 290 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 infections between July 25 and Aug. 25. They included 38 fully vaccinated people – about 13% of the total, while the other 252 were unvaccinated. Unvaccinated people comprised 51 of the patients admitted to intensive-care units at hospitals in Tulare County, compared to one fully vaccinated ICU patient.
The breakthrough cases represent 12 of the approximately 543 deaths stemming from coronavirus infections since Jan. 14 in Madera, Merced and Tulare counties, although the numbers are imprecise because the date of death does not reflect the date of the disease onset for a patient.
Across the central San Joaquin Valley, almost 870,000 people have received either the two-shot or one-dose regimen. Over the past few weeks, third doses of the Pfizer shots have been available to people with compromised immune symptoms after the Food & Drug Administration authorized them.
But the fully vaccinated are outnumbered by almost 1.1 million people in the region who are wholly unvaccinated, not even receiving one dose of vaccine.
Madera County has reported 124 deaths since mid-January, but only counts 29 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 since Feb. 1, one of which occurred in a fully vaccinated person. A spokesperson for the county said epidemiologists attribute the variation to counting not the date of death, or even the date on which the death was officially reported, but the episode date – when a person became infected, received a positive coronavirus test, or first showed symptoms of COVID-19.
Using that calculation, the lone breakthrough death represents 3.4% of the deaths with an episode date of Feb. 1 or later, or about 1.4% of the 74 deaths attributed to COVID-19 since mid-January.
Health officials in Madera County added that about 7.3% of coronavirus cases since Feb. 1 – 278 out of 3,789 – were among vaccinated people.
Fresno and Kings counties were unable to provide figures on breakthrough deaths among fully vaccinated people for this report.
Two breakthrough deaths have occurred among fully vaccinated people in Tulare County, including one between late July and late August. Those deaths amount to less than 1% of the 265 fatalities blamed on COVID-19 since mid-January in Tulare County.
Merced County is reporting the largest number of deaths from breakthrough infections – nine of about 204 COVID-19 fatalities reported since Jan. 14, or about 4.5%.
Statewide, almost 24,000 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported since Jan. 14, according to data from the California Department of Public Health. They include at least 306 deaths among vaccinated individuals, or about 1.3%.
The Centers for Disease Control reports that though Aug. 30, there were 220,162 coronavirus deaths, of which 2,437 – or 1.1% – were among fully vaccinated patients.
This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 1:01 PM with the headline "COVID-19 deaths are few among vaccinated residents in Fresno, Valley. Here’s the data."
