New CDC chart highlights significantly reduced hospitalization risk for vaccinated

Pfizer vaccine.
(Image credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

While briefing reporters on the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday, Centers for Disease Control and Preveniton Director Rochelle Walensky highlighted data, visualized in a chart, that further show the reduced risk of hospitalization individuals face once they're vaccinated against COVID-19.

Based on the CDC data, which Walensky said is from a nationally representative sample of hospitals that cover approximately 10 percent of the country's population, COVID-19-associated hospitalization rates between January and July of this year were 17 times higher among unvaccinated adults than vaccinated adults. Perhaps even more strikingly, the graphic reveals that, even with the Delta variant causing more breakthrough infections than expected, the hospitalization rate among people who have received their shots ticked up only slightly throughout the time period.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.