Half of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the US wouldn’t be there if it vaccinated as well as Europe, projection says

• The Financial Times compared US hospitalizations and vaccinations to Denmark, the UK, and Portugal.
• These countries have far outperformed the US in getting their populations vaccinated and boosted.
• The FT said the number of US winter hospitalizations would almost halve if the US vaccinated like them.

The number of coronavirus patients hospitalized in the US this winter would have almost halved if the US had the same vaccination rate as Europe’s most-vaccinated countries, an analysis by the Financial Times found.

One hundred and sixty-one thousand COVID-19 patients were in US hospitals on January 19, the FT reported. But according to the FT:

• 91,000 COVID-19 patients would have been in the hospital if the US had Denmark’s vaccination rate.
• 100,000 COVID-19 patients would have been in the hospital if the US had Britain’s vaccination rate.
• 109,000 COVID-19 patients would have been in the hospital if the US had Portugal’s vaccination rate.

This graph, shared by the FT data journalist John Burn-Murdoch, shows what the difference would have been:

—John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) January 31, 2022

The findings also highlighted how other countries outperformed the US in getting their populations vaccinated and boosted, despite the US’s access to vaccines.

Figures collected by Our World in Data show that 90% of Portugal’s population, 81% of Denmark’s population, and 71% of Britain’s population had received at least two shots of the COVID-19 vaccine. The US, meanwhile, has given at least two shots to just 64% of its population.

The US is also lagging in giving booster shots to its population, per Our World in Data:

While some countries have reported low vaccination rates as they struggled to secure vaccine doses, that issue does not apply to the US.