Unvaxxed 50X More Likely To Be Hospitalized: Marin Health Officer

SAN RAFAEL, CA — Unvaccinated people are 50 times more likely to be hospitalized for the coronavirus, Marin’s top health official said earlier this week.

Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis attributed a leveling off of the delta variant-fueled coronavirus case surge in Marin to the county’s phenomenally successful vaccine rollout Tuesday during a presentation before the Board of Supervisors.

“Places like Marin County that have really been an outlier in terms of vaccination rates I think are beginning to demonstrate the benefit of those high vaccination rates in terms of reducing the trajectory of that surge,” Willis said.

Willis noted that although they make up a small fraction of the county's population, unvaccinated people represent 90 percent of the hospitalizations Marin has experienced over the last three months.

"The risk of being hospitalized in Marin County if you are unvaccinated is 50 times higher than the risk for being hospitalized with COVID-19 if you are vaccinated.”

Marin has the state’s highest vaccine rate and earlier this year was ranked the nation's most vaccinated county according to data analysis conducted by The San Francisco Chronicle.

As of Thursday, 95.6 percent of county's eligible population 12 years of age and older have received at least one does of the vaccine and 88.4 percent have completed their vaccine series according to Marin's vaccine dashboard.

Willis’ assessment of conditions on the ground in Marin reflects the view articulated by medical experts that the pandemic in the U.S. is largely being driven by the unvaccinated.

"There is a clear message that is coming through: This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said earlier this summer.

Willis during his presentation before the Board of Supervisors acknowledged that vaccinated people are not bulletproof, noting Marin is “seeing some vaccinated people in the hospital but at much lower rates.”

Marin earlier this month reported its first coronavirus-related fatality of a vaccinated person, a woman over the age of 75 who died Aug. 12.

Willis also acknowledged concerns about children under the age of 12 for whom emergency use authorization of the vaccine has not yet been granted by the FDA and other agencies.

He told the board that authorization could come in October.

“We’ll be prioritizing vaccinating our school-age children,” Willis said, noting that the county in partnership with schools is already readying to administer the vaccine to children under 12.

Willis said vaccines have helped Marin hit a COVID-19 “plateau” while cases in other parts of the country are exploding.

Florida on Wednesday established new records for deaths, hospitalizations and new cases, The New York Times reports.

Willis said Marin peaked Aug. 1 at 51 cases on average of new cases per day. The county is currently averaging around 40 cases per day.

“I wouldn’t call that a reliable decline in cases, statistically, but it is certainly a reliable plateau in cases,” Willis said.