As California moves into the third year of the pandemic, COVID-19 continues to pose a serious threat. But the number of other people who have died, and the demographics of those who have died, have been drastically replaced in the first two years.
Given the herd immunity other people gained through a combination of mass vaccination and past infections, Californians overall were much less likely to die from COVID-19 in 2022, when the Omicron variant dominated, than in 2020 and 2021, when other variants were largely to play with. This reflects a national trend.
However, the coronavirus kills many Californians each week, affecting the unvaccinated the most.
COVID-19 remained one of the state’s leading causes of death in July, central disease, cancer, stroke and Alzheimer’s, but it surpassed diabetes, accidental deaths and a host of other debilitating diseases. In the first seven months of the year, about 13,500 California citizens died from COVID-19, according to initial death certificate data from the state Department of Public Health. By comparison, the disease killed about 31,400 more people in 2020 and only about 44,000 in 2021.
From April 2020 to December 2021, COVID-19 killed an average of another 3600 people per month, making it the third leading cause of death in the state at the time, central disease and cancer. From December 2020 to February 2021, in Brief surpassed central disease as the leading cause of death, claiming the lives of more than 38,300 Californians in just three months. At its recent peak in January 2022, COVID-19 claimed the lives of approximately 5,900 other people.
COVID-19 exited the 10 most sensitive causes of death for a brief period in the spring, only to re-enter this summer when new subvariants of Omicron emerged. In July, even with more than 70% of Californians fully vaccinated, COVID-19 the fifth leading cause of death, shortening more than 1,000 lives, according to state data.
Clearly, vaccines have made a difference. COVID-19 death rates have declined in recent months, as past vaccines and infections accounted for much of the population’s coverage for serious illness, said Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at UCLA.
Brewer also said the Omicron variant, while more transmissible than previous strains, appears to be a milder edition of the virus. Research on this factor is ongoing, but initial knowledge suggests that Omicron is less likely to cause serious illness and death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also notes that the severity of symptoms can be affected by vaccination status, age and other health conditions.
The drop in deaths has been striking among California’s Latino population.
In 2020 and 2021, Latino citizens accounted for 47% of COVID-19 deaths in California (about 35,400) despite representing 40% of the state’s population. By comparison, Latinos accounted for 34% of COVID-19 deaths from January to July 2022, according to state data. This translates to approximately 4600 deaths.
By contrast, the number of COVID-19 deaths involving white citizens increased from 32% in the first two years of the pandemic to 44% in the first seven months of 2022. This equates to 24,400 white citizen deaths in 2020-21 and about 6,000 deaths in the first seven months of 2022. Whites make up about 35 percent of the state’s population.
The researchers point to several points in the change. In the first two years of the pandemic, a large number of employees considered essential, who continued to report on user structure sites, were Latino, while white citizens were more likely to be hired in occupations that allowed them to work from home in U. S. Census Bureau surveys show this.
“They were just more exposed,” said Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UC San Francisco. “They make paintings and had to leave the space and move on to paintings. “
An imbalance persists in remote paintings, according to census data, but a large majority of Latino and white staff in California show the paintings in person.
Seciah Aquino, deputy director of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, said efforts to do certain tests, remedies and vaccines for underserved communities of color were also having an effect. And because Latino communities have been so hard hit by the pandemic, he said, many California Latinos still wear masks.
“They make sure to stay home if they’re sick,” he said. “They still comply with those policies, even if the larger narrative changes. “
Age is also key in demographic changes, Brewer said.
In 2022, Californians age 75 and older accounted for 53% of COVID-19 deaths in July, up from 46% in 2020 and 2021. Only about 6 percent of the state’s citizens are 75 or older. And white Californians age 75 and older outnumber Latinos in this age organization by about 3 to 1.
At the initial launch of vaccination, California prioritized seniors, first responders and other workers, and for several months in 2021, older citizens were much more likely to be vaccinated than younger Californians.
“Now vaccination rates have been maintained with almost all children, under the age of 18,” Brewer said. “You see it happening again to what we’ve noticed before, which is that age is still the ultimate life threat to death. “
More than 86% of Californians 65 and older have completed their main COVID-19 vaccine series. But the coverage presented through vaccines is declining over time, and because many older adults were vaccinated early, enough time has passed between the time they received the vaccine and the Omicron wave in early 2022 to make them vulnerable. About one-third of Californians 65 and older had not won a retirement by early 2022, when the Omicron wave peaked, and about a quarter have yet to gain a booster.
Geographic changes in COVID-19 prevalence have occurred during the pandemic: outbreaks affect one domain while another is saved, and then another network serves as the epicenter a few months later.
Residents of the San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan domain accounted for 7. 8% of the state’s deaths in 2022, through early September, up from 5. 4% in 2020-21. The region is home to approximately 12% of the state’s residents. The Sacramento metropolitan domain accounted for a higher percentage of COVID-19 deaths this year: 6% in 2022 to 4. 5% in 2020-21.
At the same time, citizens of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area accounted for 42% of COVID-19 deaths in 2022, up from 43% in 2020-21. The region is home to approximately 33% of the state’s citizens. A similar decline occurred in the neighboring Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area.
Again, age may just be an issue in geographic travel. According to census data, a higher proportion of San Francisco and Sacramento citizens are 75 or older than those in Los Angeles and Riverside.
It is not clear that this replacement will last. COVID-19 deaths increased at a faster rate in July in Los Angeles County than in the Bay Area.
The data also shows that vaccination remains one of the main deterrents to death from COVID-19.
From January to July, unvaccinated Californians died at a rate five times that of vaccinated Californians. But the hole was much bigger before. From April to December 2021, unvaccinated California citizens died, on average, at a rate about 10 times that of vaccinated Californians.
Brewer said the gap narrowed because Omicron is more likely to “break through” and cause infections in vaccinated Californians than previous variants.
This trend may also prove short-lived: the next generation of COVID-19 boosters are rolling out statewide and they are targeting Omicron, as well as China’s original coronavirus strain.
Phillip Reese is a knowledge communication specialist and assistant professor of journalism at California State University, Sacramento.
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