The highly vaccinated Bay State did not report excess deaths during the spring even amid a rise of COVID cases and hospitalizations, according to a new Brigham and Women’s Hospital research paper.
“For the first time really during such a wave, we didn’t see any increase in the number of deaths as compared to what would normally happen during the same period of time,” Jeremy Faust, who’s in the Brigham’s Department of Emergency Medicine and is the corresponding author of the research, told the Herald on Monday.
Throughout the pandemic, COVID waves have had corresponding waves of excess mortality — deaths that go above and beyond the expected number for that time of year.
But in Massachusetts, where more than 80% of the population is fully vaccinated, researchers found that during the 18 weeks from Feb. 27 to June 26, there was no excess mortality in the state despite waves of COVID cases and hospitalizations.
“It tells me that at least temporarily — and I think that’s a key word — at least temporarily the highest risk population in the state was walking around with quite a bit of immunity this spring,” Faust said. “So that a combination of recent boosters and recent infections left people with a lot of immunity.”
The spring wave of COVID cases came after an intense surge of infections and deaths during the initial omicron wave during the winter.
Every week in Massachusetts, there are somewhere between 1,000 and 1,300 projected deaths across the state. During the 18 weeks of the research study period from Feb. 27 to June 26, the scientists projected 20,500 deaths from all causes. The state reported 20,600 deaths, which is 100 more deaths than projected.
“That’s not significant,” Faust said. “That’s just statistically noisy.”
During the initial omicron wave in January and February, the researchers expected less than 10,000 deaths across the state from all causes. The state reported 12,200 deaths, a 22% increase.
“We had so much excess mortality in the first eight weeks of omicron, it was actually worse than all of delta in Massachusetts,” Faust said.
The peak of daily COVID deaths in Massachusetts during the initial omicron surge was 66 deaths in January, compared to the low of four daily COVID deaths in April.
“I hate to use the word progress because we actually got there by essentially letting the virus infect so many people, but it tells me we are in a potentially different phase where a COVID wave doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have historic levels of mortality,” Faust said.
“I think it’s an open question from here on out,” he said, adding that it’s important to remain vigilant as new variants emerge or immunity wanes.
The Lancet Infectious Diseases paper was published on Monday. It’s titled, “Uncoupling of all-cause excess mortality from COVID-19 cases in a highly vaccinated state.”
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