With around 60% of Americans fully vaccinated during the most recent wave, daily deaths from omicron are still relatively high, which begs the question: Who is dying of COVID-19 when there is such strong vaccination coverage?
Infectious disease doctors say it is still mainly unvaccinated people, most of whom are in their 30s and 40s with no underlying health issues, who are dying.
"The vast majority of patients -- anywhere from 75% and greater -- we're seeing is primarily unvaccinated individuals who are getting COVID and wind up in the hospital severely ill and are currently dying," Dr. Mahdee Sobhanie, an assistant professor of internal medicine and an infectious diseases physician at The Ohio State University, told ABC News.
A small percentage of deaths are among fully vaccinated (and boosted) people who are either older or have preexisting conditions that increase their risk of dying.
Unvaccinated still make up majority of deaths
Nearly two years into the pandemic, unvaccinated Americans are still making up the majority of COVID deaths.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that during the first week of December -- when the omicron variant began taking hold -- unvaccinated people were dying at a rate of 9 per 100,000.
By comparison, fully vaccinated people were dying at a rate of 0.4 per 100,000, meaning unvaccinated people were 20 times more likely to die of the virus, according to an ABC News analysis. State-level data, from California to Mississippi, shows similar results.
