Despite strong levels of vaccination among older people, Covid killed them at vastly higher rates during this winter's Omicron wave than it did last year, preying on long delays since their last shots and the variant's ability to skirt immune defenses.
There was a wave of deaths in older people this winter. The Omicron surge and the Delta wave both caused deaths for older people, but the Omicron surge caused more severe illness, while the Delta wave caused less.
Older people still account for an overwhelming share of Covid death rates.
Andrew Stokes, an assistant professor in global health at Boston University who studies age patterns of Covid deaths, said that this is not simply a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
Omicron.
161%.
The peak of the Delta.
Omicron.
A majority of it.
The peak of the Delta.
Omicron.
161%.
The peak of the Delta.
Omicron.
A majority of it.
The peak of the Delta.
Since vaccines became widely available, covid deaths have skewed toward older people more than they have in the past.
The Biden administration is under pressure to protect older Americans because of the swing in the Pandemic, with health officials in recent weeks encouraging everyone 50 and older to get a second booster and introducing new models of distributing antiviral pills.
Older people and their doctors said that the booster campaign is disorganized and listless in most of the country. Patients who can't drive or get online have to navigate through an often labyrinthine health care system to receive potentially life-saving antivirals.
Covid deaths in the country have been below average in recent weeks. Middle-aged Americans, who were 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217
The new wave of Omicron subvariants may create additional threats, as the admission rates for people 70 and older in the Northeast have climbed to one-third of the winter Omicron wave.
Inouye is a geriatrician and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Covid-19 death rates for people over the age of 65.
Unvaccinated.
There were 156 deaths.
per 100,000
It was vaccinated.
24 per 100,000.
With a booster.
7 per 100,000.
Vaccination rates for people older than 65 years old.
Covid-19 death rates for people over the age of 65.
Unvaccinated.
There were 156 deaths.
per 100,000
It was vaccinated.
24 per 100,000.
With a booster.
7 per 100,000.
Vaccination rates for people older than 65 years old.
Harold Thomas Jr., 70, of Knoxville, Tenn., is one of many older Americans who have not received a booster shot. 13 percent of people 65 and older are unvaccinated, 3 percent have a single Moderna or Pfizer shot, and another 14 percent are not boosted, according to the Covid States Project.
Mr. Thomas said that the state health department made it convenient to get vaccines at his apartment community for older people. He didn't know about the effort for booster doses. He remembered a state official casting doubt on boosters as they became available.
He said that the government wasn't sure about the booster shot.
Deaths have fallen from the heights of the winter wave because of growing levels of immunity. The Covid virus has fewer targets in older people because many of the most fragile Americans were killed by it over the winter.
Many older Americans were warned that they were still susceptible. To protect them, geriatricians called on nursing homes to organize in- home vaccinations or mandate additional shots.
Scientists said that policymakers needed to address the economic and medical ills that have affected especially nonwhite older Americans in order to prevent Covid from cutting so many of their lives short.
The premature death of older adults should not be treated as a means of ending the epidemic.
The pattern of Covid deaths this year is similar to the one in 2020 when the virus killed older Americans at a higher rate. Mortality rates increased with each extra year of age, according to a recent study.
During the Delta surge, that changed. By November, the vaccination rate in Americans 65 and older was 20 percentage points higher than that in their 40s. Older Americans received vaccines recently that left them with strong levels of residual protection.
Older people suffered from Covid at a lower rate than before vaccines became available. The death rate among people 85 and older was 75 percent lower last fall than it was in the winter of 2020.
Many Americans who had not been vaccined returned to in-person work after the virus walloped younger and less vaccined Americans. The death rates for white people in their late 30s more than tripled last fall. The death rates for black people in the same age group doubled.
According to a study posted online in February, deaths among Americans 80 and older returned to normal levels in 2021. The life expectancy of middle-aged Americans fell even further in 2021, even though it had already fallen more than it had in Europe.
In 2021, you can see the mortality impact of the Pandemic shift younger, according to Ridhi Kashyap, a lead author of that study and a demographer at the University of Oxford.
Researchers said that more older Americans had gone a long time since their last Covid vaccine when the Omicron variant took over.
More than a quarter of Americans 65 and older have not had their most recent vaccine dose within a year. In the last six months, more than half of people in that age group had not been given a shot.
The Omicron variant of the virus was better at evading the weakened immune defenses than previous versions. Older people's immune systems respond less aggressively to vaccines.
The vaccine effectiness was zero.
Against hospitalization.
The vaccine effectiness was zero.
Against hospitalization.
Less than 2.
months ago
The last dose.
Less than 2.
months ago
The last dose.
The vaccine effectiness was zero.
Against hospitalization.
Less than 2.
months ago
The last dose.
The vaccine effectiness was zero.
Against hospitalization.
Less than 2.
months ago
The last dose.
Over time, even three vaccine doses seem to become less protective against Omicron-related hospital admissions for some people. Older Americans were more likely to fall into the category of people with weakened immune systems according to a recent study. 9 percent of people 65 and older in the study were immunocompromised, compared with 2.5 percent of adults under 50, according to the study's lead author.
Covid death rates were higher for older Americans than younger ones during the Omicron wave. The excess deaths were caused by the number of people who actually died and the number of people who would have been expected to die.
Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, found that older people were more likely to die during the Omicron wave than during the Delta surge. The study found that there were more excess deaths in Massachusetts during the first eight weeks of Omicron than there were during the 23 week period when Delta dominated.
Older people began dying at higher rates, which led to more Covid deaths. According to an analysis of figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 40 percent of the people who died from Covid in March werevaccinated.
Younger people have lower levels of natural immunity than older people during the Pandemic. More than one-third of people 65 and older have evidence of prior infections, compared with less than two-thirds of adults under 50.
People who have Covid cases are less likely to become seriously ill.
Older people were more exposed due to the drop-off in Covid precautions this winter. It is not clear how their behavior has changed. Scientists at the University of Michigan found that the gap between older and younger people wearing masks had disappeared by mid-2021.
It is difficult to know who is benefiting from the increased use of antiviral pills. The winter spike in Covid death rates among older Americans demanded a more urgent policy response from scientists.
Dr. Inouye said she waited for a notice from her mother's assisted living facility about the second booster shots even as reports began to arrive of staff members becoming ill. The facility's director said that a second booster shot drive was impossible without state guidance.
Her family had to go to a pharmacy on their own for a second booster.
It seems that the onus is on the individual.
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