This article originally appeared on the Josiah Barlett Center website.
Since the beginning of February, unvaccinated individuals have accounted for 99% of New Hampshire’s COVID-19 cases and 98% of deaths, according to state data. The numbers indicate how extremely effective vaccines have been at fighting COVID-19 in the state.
From February 1 through June 23, the state recorded 33,703 COVID-19 cases, according to the state’s Joint Information Center, part of its Emergency Operations Center. Of those, only 349 involved people who had been fully vaccinated. That’s 1.03% of the total.
During the same period, 236 people have died from COVID-19. Only five of those were fully vaccinated. That’s 2.1% of the total.
Only 15 fully vaccinated individuals have been hospitalized for COVID-19 in New Hampshire, according to the Joint Information Center.
Because of the way the state tracks hospitalizations, an exact percentage breakdown for hospitalized patients is not possible. The state records whether a patient was hospitalized at the time the case was reported to the state, but not whether hospitalization was required later. However, the state does track how many vaccinated people have required hospitalization for COVID-19 at any point. That number has totaled only 15.
The Joint Information Center sets February 1 as the approximate date by which Granite Staters began to become fully vaccinated.
A University of New Hampshire poll released Thursday reports that 25% of Granite Staters say they probably or definitely will not get the vaccine.
Among that group, 56% say they don’t believe it will be effective at stopping them from getting COVID.
The state data show that, contrary to this view, the vaccines are highly effective at reducing the risk of infection, serious illness and death from the coronavirus.
The state figures also are similar to national data released last week. An Associated Press analysis of COVID-19 data from May found that 99.2% of COVID-19 deaths in the United States were among unvaccinated people.
The difference between the 99% and 98% rates for New Hampshire cases and deaths, respectively, is not statistically significant, Beth Daly, chief of the state Bureau of Infectious Disease Control, said. (Dr. Daly’s comment was received after press time and was added to this story after publication.)
“The numbers are not really statistically different because you are comparing a small number (236) to a larger one (33,703).
“This is an issue of small numbers when you compare a denominator of tens of thousands to a denominator of just a few hundred. The confidence interval of 5 divided by 236 is from <1% to 5%, so the 1% observed in the calculation of 349 divided by 33,703 is not statistically nor meaningfully different from the proportion of deaths.
“To say it another way, the proportion of vaccine breakthrough infections is statistically the same/no different from the proportion of vaccine breakthrough deaths. They are also not substantively different.”
Drew Cline is the president of the Josiah Barlett Center for Public Policy
