Unvaccinated people ‘not dead or sick’? False. COVID-19 is hitting them hard

Breakthrough cases of COVID-19, in which the virus infects people who have been vaccinated, have led to confusion and even despair.

But a viral image takes that relatively rare occurrence and wrongly claims that somehow unvaccinated people are escaping COVID-19 unscathed. 

It says:

"Make it make sense! Unvaccinated are making the vaccinated people sick and die. But the unvaccinated people are not dead or sick. Make it make sense!"

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

A tiny fraction of vaccinated people have been hospitalized or died as a result of a breakthrough infection: 

• As of Aug. 2, 2021, more than 164 million people in the United States had been fully vaccinated and, based on reports from 49 U.S. states and territories, there were 7,525 breakthrough cases in which the person was hospitalized or died, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That comes out to less than one-hundredth of 1%.

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• Similarly, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, among 25 states that report data on breakthrough cases, hospitalization rates among fully vaccinated people ranged from effectively 0% to 0.06%; and death rates ranged from effectively 0% to 0.01%.

It’s not known how many breakthrough infections were caused by contact with an infected person who was unvaccinated.

But it’s clear that unvaccinated people are being hit much harder by the virus than those who have been inoculated.

• Seven states with some of the lowest vaccination rates — Florida, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi — accounted for about half of new cases and hospitalizations in the previous week, the White House said at a briefing Aug. 5.

• Based on preliminary data, hospitalizations and deaths "are overwhelmingly unvaccinated people," CDC director Rochelle Walensky said at the briefing.

• The CDC estimated July 29 that the unvaccinated are 25 times more likely than the vaccinated to be hospitalized or to die from the virus.

We rate the post False.