Wickenburg Community Hospital asks that the community tune in to what the CDC is reporting as we urge the community to do their part in helping keep Emergency Rooms (ERs) open for emergencies and minimize COVID-19 hospitalizations.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) findings about COVID-19 breakthrough cases among fully vaccinated individuals:
- It’s extremely rare for a breakthrough case to lead to severe outcomes.
- When a severe outcome such as intensive care admission does occur from a breakthrough case, the individual is almost certain to have at least one risk factor such as advanced age, suppressed immune system, or chronic disease.
- In the extraordinarily rare instance of a breakthrough case resulting in death, several risk factors usually are involved.
Among more than 1.2 million fully vaccinated adults in the study, just 327 of them were hospitalized due to COVID-19. Of those hospitalized, 189 of those (1.5 per 10,000) had severe outcomes that included acute respiratory failure, the need for noninvasive ventilation, or intensive care unit admission. The case data showed that all of those who experienced severe COVID-19 outcomes had at least one of these risk factors:
- age 65 and older
- suppressed immune system
- pulmonary disease
- chronic kidney disease
- neurologic disease
- cardiac disease
Of the 36 fully vaccinated individuals in this group who died (0.3 per 10,000), about three-quarters of them had at least four of these risk factors…Our most recent analysis of outcomes by vaccination status found that those who weren’t vaccinated were 31.1 times more likely to die from COVID-19 and 4.9 times more likely to test positive.
If you aren’t already vaccinated or have yet to receive your booster dose, I encourage you to find a provider at azhealth.gov/FindVaccine and roll up your sleeve as soon as possible.
With the Omicron variant spreading rapidly, Arizona has seen more COVID-19 cases in the past week than any other week of the pandemic. Alongside this increase, we’ve seen more people seeking care in hospital emergency rooms and more people seeking COVID-19 testing.”
This information was published by Jessica Rigler on January 11th, & 14th 2022 with the Arizona Department of Health Services. See full publication here.
