BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Wednesday, December 14th marked two years since the first COVID-19 vaccination shot was injected into an arm. Since then, nearly 660 million doses have been distributed. According to a new study, it made a difference.
The Commonwealth Fund and Yale School of Public Health issued a report saying roughly 3.2 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented because of the vaccine. The findings, based on their data from December 2020 through November of this year, also say nearly 19 million COVID-19 hospitalizations were staved off by the shots.
While some health officials admit the overall effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines has faded because of variants, they say the vaccines still provide proper protection from the virus.
Saturday, December 17th will mark the second anniversary of Kern Medical Center becoming the first hospital in the county to administer Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.
Doctor Arash Heidari, an infectious disease specialist, was the first person in the county to get the vaccine. Dr. Heidari said he wanted to send a message to the public.
Kern County Public Health reports a total of 297,405 cases in the county since the pandemic began with 290,826 people recovering from the virus.
Public Health did recently report a spike in local cases. According to the latest numbers released on December 8th, there are 1,542 new cases. Four more people lost their lives to the virus, bringing our total number of COVID-related deaths to 2,579.
