What do Michigan, Louisiana and Texas have in common? Unfortunately, it’s the rather grim fact that all three are on the list of the top 20 states with the highest annual COVID-19 morbidity rates.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, Michigan came in the 20th spot with a rate of 148 deaths per 100,000 people, higher than the national average of 137 deaths per 100,000. Texas was in the 16th spot with 162 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people and Louisiana came in 17th with 160 deaths per 100,000 people.
Oklahoma topped the list with 248 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people and 9,803 total deaths.
Although the COVID-19 death rate in Texas wasn’t one of the top 10, it had the highest number of overall COVID-19 deaths on the list at 47,090, followed by Florida at 40,591. In Louisiana, an estimated 7,449 people died from the virus and 14,883 died in Michigan.
Louisiana had the fourth lowest vaccination rate on the list with 118,727 doses per 100,000 people. Alabama had the lowest at 112,556 doses and it had the second highest overall morbidity rate, Mississippi had the second lowest vaccination rate at 113,801 doses and it had the sixth highest morbidity rate and Wyoming had the third lowest at 116,346 and had the seventh highest morbidity rate.
According to an NBC LX analysis, U.S. states with the lowest vaccination lost two to five times more residents than states with high vaccination rates this year.
Since the start of 2021, 458,000 people in the U.S. lost their lives to COVID-19 and close to 500 million vaccines have been administered. Fewer than a dozen deaths have been reported due to negative vaccine reactions, and all were related to the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine.
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it would recommend the two other vaccines – two-dose mRNA shots from Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna – over the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The single dose vaccine has been connected to blot clotting issues.
“This has been a year where the majority of people have gotten exposed, either to the virus or to the vaccine,” said epidemiologist Dr. David Dowdy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But we know the virus is something that can kill you and the vaccine is not.”
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