334 Fully Vaccinated Indiana Residents Have Died Of COVID-19; 39,000 Breakthrough Cases Recorded

More than 300 fully vaccinated individuals in Indiana have died of COVID-19, while over 39,000 vaccinated people have suffered breakthrough infections, according to the state’s health department.

Indiana health officials have recorded 334 breakthrough COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data updated on Sept. 30. Of the total number of deaths, 91% or 303 occurred in patients aged 65 or older. The deaths represent 0.010% of the state’s fully vaccinated population.

The data also showed that the state has recorded 39,176 breakthrough COVID-19 infections since the start of the pandemic, which represent 1.199% of fully vaccinated individuals in Indiana.

As of last Thursday, 845 fully vaccinated individuals were hospitalized with COVID-19, representing 0.026% of the state’s vaccinated population.

Across the U.S., health officials recorded a total of 5,226 breakthrough deaths as of Sept. 27. A large portion, 86%, occurred in people aged 65 and older. Forty-four percent occurred in female patients and 17% occurred in people with asymptomatic cases or whose deaths were not related to COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. surpassed 704,000 COVID-19 deaths Tuesday, making 2021 the deadliest year in the history of the pandemic in the country. Throughout 2020, health officials reported a total of 352,000 coronavirus-related deaths, or half the 704,000 mark.

Despite the solemn mark, epidemiologists across the U.S. are seeing an encouraging sign that the Delta variant may have peaked nationally as hospitalization rates plunged by 26.9% over the past week compared to four weeks ago, according to USA Today.

The seven-day average of daily new infections in the U.S. also dropped by 29% from 151,000 reported on Sept. 14 to 106,000 on Sept. 29, according to data from the CDC.

Health experts are still urging Americans to get vaccinated amid the downtrend, warning that a new variant may still emerge from the unvaccinated population.

“When you have 70 million people left who have not been vaccinated, many of whom have not yet been infected, that’s a lot of human wood for this coronavirus human forest fire to burn,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told The Guardian.

The U.S. has so far recorded 43,947,979 COVID-19 cases and 705,190 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.