This compares to just 26% of people ages 50 and older who died from COVID in Georgia over the same period.
Public health experts noted the trend at the time as the virus became deadlier for younger people last summer. They cite a likely combination of factors, including lower vaccination rates among younger adults and the emergence of a more contagious and virulent variant, resulting in younger people being more affected by COVID.
Many mask-wearing regulations started falling before Delta showed up. And younger and middle-aged people were slow to take the vaccine, putting them at greater risk than the older population, which was previously well vaccinated, experts said.
“I think we can attribute this to less robust vaccine compliance in people under the age of 50,” said Dr. Amber Schmidtke, a public health researcher who has been following the cases in Georgia. “Maybe they think they’re invincible, or they don’t think that’s going to kill them, and also with their higher exposure rate. I think both have to do with it.”
And younger people are more likely to be “frontline workers” who hold jobs that are considered essential and require personal work, such as
“She was a bright spot,” said a close friend, Cera Sampson, whose younger daughter, Rylee, is in elementary school. “She would do anything to help her students. She would make sure they had breakfast and make sure they came to class.”
“Now when I drive to school to drop my daughter Rylee off, I have this moment where I fall back into a sad state,” Sampson said of Kimmons. “One wonders: Why? Why she? There isn’t a day that people could forget her because she shaped so many people.”
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Rashida Clayborn Kimmons, a paraprofessional Pre-K, died of COVID-19 last August. she was 40
Credit: contr
Credit: contr
subtitle
Rashida Clayborn Kimmons, a paraprofessional Pre-K, died of COVID-19 last August. she was 40
Credit: contr
Credit: contr
Delta was different
A random day at the start of the delta wave shows the toll the virus was beginning to take on younger Georgians.
On August 1, as deaths in the Delta began to rise, 36 people in Georgia died from COVID. Eleven of them were under 50. They included a 17-year-old high school student from Douglasville and a 32-year-old funeral services apprentice near Savannah. A 44-year-old pianist from Heard County and a 32-year-old foster parent from Burke County died. mothers and fathers, neighbors.
In two years, more than 31,000 Georgians have died from COVID, and the United States is on track to surpass the 1 million deaths from COVID milestone in the coming days.
The AJC’s data analysis of death certificates found that the COVID victims became younger as the pandemic progressed. The average age of a victim in the first year of the pandemic, 2020, never fell below 70 years. However, the median age of those who died from the virus dropped to 65 in August and September.
The delta variant accounted for the most cases in June, and then deaths began to climb to the fourth “peak” in coronavirus cases, which only started to decline in November.
Deaths are typically delayed by two to three weeks because it takes time for people to become seriously ill and there is no deadline for when death certificates must be sent to the state. Because of these delays, the death certificate data on COVID deaths received by the AJC is incomplete and cannot be used to infer the median age of those who died during the fifth wave of the Omicron variant.
Throughout the pandemic, elderly populations have overwhelmingly been the most at risk. Death certificates show that people aged 50 and over account for 91% of coronavirus victims in Georgia, and the death rate for Georgians over 80 was 2,864 per 100,000. For Georgians under the age of 50, the figure was only 36 out of 100,000.
From December 2020 to February 2021, just over 1,000 people under the age of 50 died from COVID. Delta would almost triple that number.
More than 2,800 Georgians under the age of 50 died from August to October 2021, despite the total number of COVID deaths in Georgia increasing by only 3% compared to the previous winter. Deaths in people over 50 fell by 23% during this period.
“It was clear that Delta stood out,” Schmidtke said, referring to younger COVID victims. “…It needs to be recognized among the under-50s that we’re not entirely made of rubber. We are not invincible against this threat.”
The number of children and teens who died from COVID skyrocketed as Delta became the dominant strain. Only 20 Georgians under the age of 20 died from COVID before August, but 29 would die in the following three months.
Something different happened with the Delta variant: more people who were fully vaccinated got ‘breakthrough’ infections.
Researchers found that the efficacy of Pfizer’s vaccines against delta variant infections was 93% one month after the second dose and dropped to 53% after four months, according to an observational study published in The Lancet in October 2021 It has been found that even though protection against infection wears off over several months – meaning vaccinated people can still contract the virus – vaccines are still effective in keeping people out of the hospital.
“Follow the guidelines, especially if you’re immunocompromised and at higher risk, still wear your mask and get your booster,” said Dr. Dominic Mack, Professor of Family Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine. “And if you don’t fit into those categories and you’re healthy, I’d still advise using your best judgement. Get vaccinated and look at the numbers. There is still a threat.”
DiscoverFull coverage: Coronavirus in Georgia
‘Too young. Far too young.’
Last August, Chris Bachelor, a popular school resource officer in the Hall County Sheriff’s Department, died of COVID. Bachelor also fell ill during the Delta Wave, battled the disease for about a month, and died at Northeast Georgia Medical Center. The 42-year-old bachelor was married and the father of an 11-year-old daughter.
Assigned to CW Davis Middle School in Flowery Branch, Bachelor was known for his kind heart, candy smile and ability to connect with students. In a Meet Your Officer video posted to the Hall County Sheriff’s Department Facebook page, Bachelor said he wanted to be more than an officer at the school.
“I want to be a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen to, or just to hang out,” Bachelor said.
He also joked about donuts.
“That’s probably the one I get asked the most. ‘Do the police like donuts?’” he said, laughing. “Yeah. Who doesn’t like donuts?”
Flowery Branch’s Rebecca Massey was struck by Bachelor’s care and concern after her son was bullied at school.
“From that point on, after my son was bullied, he would look after my son and always make sure he was okay. He gave me his cell phone number. He really, really cared about the kids,” Massey said. “…We were absolutely devastated when we heard what happened. It was heartbreaking. He was too young. Way too young.”
Next month, deputies from the Hall County Sheriff’s Department will travel to Washington DC, where Bachelor’s name will be engraved on the limestone walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, a memorial with two sweeping, 304-foot-long blue-gray walls.
His name will be among the names of 619 officers engraved on the memorial wall. More than half of the officers added to the memorial died from COVID, according to a spokesman for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
And next month it will add the names of 44 Georgia officers, including 31 who have died from COVID during the pandemic. Many of these fallen officers, like Bachelor, were under 50.
Health experts fear that new, emerging variants combined with lackluster vaccination rates could mean history repeating itself, which is hitting hard at younger age groups.
DiscoverThe next wave? The Omicron BA.2 subvariant is gaining momentum in Georgia
Schmidtke said the vaccines were given to older adults first and the older population has maintained their protection and received boosters as they became available. The most recent decision, on March 29, was to allow anyone over the age of 50 to take a second booster – meaning a fourth shot.
Younger adults continue to be left behind despite the looming threat of new variants and the rising death toll.
As Delta cases spiked last summer, Georgians aged 50 and older were twice as likely to be fully vaccinated, according to data from the Georgia Department of Public Health. By November, 77% of people aged 50 and over were fully vaccinated, compared to just 47% of people aged 10 to 49.
Omicron and BA.2 are more contagious than previous versions of the virus but appear to cause milder illness in most cases. Younger adults who are unvaccinated remain at increased risk of serious disease, as do older adults with declining immunity to the vaccine who have not received a booster dose. Only about 22% of Georgians are fully vaccinated and refreshed.
dr Harry J. Heiman, clinical associate professor at Georgia State University School of Public Health, said the rise in BA.2 cases in the northern states is worrying.
“Things are calmer and I hope and pray we don’t see any further increases. But we have certainly celebrated prematurely in the past. It’s the old adage, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And we need to do a lot more with the tools we have,” Heiman said.