YNHH
Borgstrom and Balcezak at Friday presser.
As older people got the Covid-19 vaccine, the average age of patients hospitalized with the coronavirus dropped.
Yale New Haven Health officials offered the latest statistics on that subject to make a point:
“The vaccine is doing its job,” said CEO Marna Borgstrom. “The vaccines have been incredibly effective.”
And therefore …
“That should be a call for everyone to be vaccinated,” said Chief Clinical Officer Tom Balcezak.
They sent that message at a press update held Friday afternoon over Zoom.
The hospital system remains at a “stubborn plateau” of around 200 hospitalized Covid-19 patients, Balcezak.
But as each age group gets more vaccines, fewer of its members are getting sick and landing in the hospital.
As of Friday, the health system had 194 Covid patients in all its five hospitals, including 96 at New Haven’s Yale New Haven Hospital.
Before Connecticut rolled out its vaccination program, 30 percent of the patients were over 75. Now that age group accounts for 10 percent.
Similarly, 20 percent of the patients pre-vaccine were between 65 and 74. Now they account for 10 percent.
Meanwhile, most of the new patients are under 55.
Balcezak and Borgstrom said that’s a direct correlation of those older people being the first groups to receive vaccines.
Like other health officials, they expressed concern about vaccine hesitancy — the fact that the remaining unvaccinated population is less motivated in general to get their shots. YNHH clinics, like others in the state, are for no longer immediately filling all appointment slots.
Like those other clinics, YNHH’s will start accepting walk-ins, without appointments necessary, beginning next week, in addition to making appointments for those who wish. (Read more about that here.) It is also working on one-time “pop-up” vaccination events in underserved neighborhoods.
The effort to vaccinate the population is running a race against the renewed spread of Covid-19 in its new variants.
“I am worried” about not reaching herd immunity unless more people can be convinced to get vaccinated, Balcezak said.
Regarding herd immunity, the key variable is the reinfection rate, i.e., how many other people one infected person transmits the virus to, more generally, how contagious the virus is. This variable itself is a function of both the virus and social/behavioral factors. What does YNHH believe the reinfection rate is in New Haven? My own belief, and that of many others (including Scott Gottlieb) is that we shall never reach herd immunity, that the disease will continue to be endemic. (Lamont's reluctance to require vaccination for university students bodes poorly for controlling the spread, twenty-somethings having the highest case rate.)