Nearly 60 percent of recent COVID-19 hospitalizations occurred in the “fully vaccinated,” according to new Medicare data.
A presentation last week for Project Salus, an AI-based COVID program of the Department of Defense (DOD), reported the findings from among a sample of 5.6 million Medicare beneficiaries, 80 percent of whom were over 65 years old.
“As the Delta variant became predominant, COVID-19 cases increased five-fold in the [over-65] population,” the report states. “In this 80% 65+ population, an estimated 60% of COVID-19 hospitalizations occurred in fully vaccinated individuals in the week ending August 7th.”
The “fully vaccinated” also made up more than 71 percent of COVID-19 cases as of August 21, according to the presentation, which was published online by the analytics firm Humetrix, a Project Salus partner.
COVID cases and hospitalizations among the vaccinated were likely far higher, however, as the Project Salus report did not include patients with one shot as “vaccinated” and only defined the double-jabbed as “fully vaccinated” two weeks after their second dose.