987 Fully Vaccinated Virginia Residents Have Died Of COVID-19 In 1 Year

Nearly 1,000 fully vaccinated residents in Virginia have died of COVID-19 over the past year as infections and deaths continue to rise in the last week.

Health officers in Virginia have recorded at least 987 breakthrough COVID-19 deaths between Jan. 17 and Dec. 25, 2021. The figure represents 0.0172% of the state’s fully vaccinated population, according to a Friday report from the Virginia Department of Health.

During the same period, Virginia recorded 90,629 breakthrough infections and 2,591 breakthrough hospitalizations, representing 1.6% and 0.045% of all vaccinated residents, respectively.

Despite the number of breakthrough cases, experts still urge residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19, noting that unvaccinated individuals were diagnosed with the virus 3.8 more times than fully vaccinated people.

The Friday report comes the same day the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association announced that the state had set a new all-time single-day high of 3,329 new COVID-19 hospitalizations. The numbers surpassed a previous peak set in January last year by almost 130 admissions.

The number of new hospitalizations for COVID-19 continued to rise over the weekend. As of Sunday, there are 3,551 patients in hospitals. At least 3,356 patients have been diagnosed with COVID-19 while 195 are still waiting for their test results.

Of the patients hospitalized with the novel coronavirus, 572 are currently admitted in the Intensive Care Unit, according to data from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. It is unclear how many patients are currently receiving ventilator support.

It is also unclear exactly what percentage of new cases and hospitalizations in Virginia were caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. However, the new variant accounted for 95% of all positive COVID-19 tests at VCU Health as of Jan. 3, the health system announced in a release.

Overall, health officials in Virginia have reported a total of 1,221,036 COVID-19 cases, 44,056 hospitalizations and 15,651 among the unvaccinated and vaccinated since the beginning of the pandemic. The numbers include people who tested positive for COVID-19 in a PCR test, tested positive from an antigen test or symptomatic with known exposure to the virus.