Black adult hospitalizations reached a pandemic high during the omicron wave, CDC study finds

Source: Washington Post

Black adult hospitalizations reached a pandemic high during the omicron wave, CDC study finds

By Akilah Johnson
March 18, 2022 at 7:34 p.m. EDT

During the peak of the omicron variant wave of the coronavirus this winter, Black adults in the United States were hospitalized at rates higher than at any moment in the pandemic, according to a report published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Black adults were four times as likely to be hospitalized compared with White adults during the height of the omicron variant surge, which started in mid-December and continued through January, the report said. In January, the CDC found, hospitalization rates for Black patients reached the highest level for any racial or ethnic group since the dawn of the pandemic.

As the highly transmissible omicron variant usurped the delta variant’s dominance, people who were unvaccinated were 12 times more likely to be hospitalized than those who were vaccinated and boosted against the coronavirus, according to the report.

And fewer Black adults had been immunized compared with White adults, said the report, which analyzed hospitalization rates in 99 counties in 14 states. The report examined the vaccination status of people older than 18 by race and ethnicity and compared hospitalization rates for the delta wave from July to Dec. 18 and for the omicron surge from Dec. 19 to Jan. 31.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/03/18/black-hospitalizations-omicron-cdc/

Non-paywalled link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-adult-hospitalizations-reached-pandemic-013130412.html