The vast majority of current COVID-19 deaths in the US are among the unvaccinated: report

In the United States, around 65% of the adult population has, according to the New York Times, been at least partially vaccinated for the COVID-19 coronavirus. Vaccination rates tend to be higher in blue states than in red states, some of which have recently seen spikes in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations. And according to reporting in the Associated Press, the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are, at this point, among the unvaccinated.

Associated Press journalists Carla K. Johnson and Mike Stobbe report, "An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that "breakthrough" infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That's about 0.1%. And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average."

Johnson and Stobbe note that AP "analyzed figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," adding that "the CDC itself has not estimated what percentage of hospitalizations and deaths are in fully vaccinated people, citing limitations in the data."

"Earlier this month, Andy Slavitt, a former adviser to the Biden Administration on COVID-19, suggested that 98% to 99% of the Americans dying of the coronavirus are unvaccinated," Johnson and Stobbe report. "And CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday that the vaccine is so effective that 'nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable.' She called such deaths 'particularly tragic.'"

President Joe Biden, since being sworn into office on January 20, has been quite aggressive and proactive about encouraging Americans to get vaccinated for COVID-19 — stressing that the higher the vaccination rates, the better a chance the U.S. will have of achieving some type of herd immunity. Biden was hoping that by July 4, 70% of U.S. adults would be at least partially vaccinated for COVID-19, although it appears that the U.S. will fall short of that goal.

According to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 600,000 people in the U.S. and more than 3.9 million worldwide.