Vast majority of ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, ABC News survey finds

Dozens of hospitals surveyed by ABC News across the country report that very few fully vaccinated people are ending up in the ICU with COVID-19.

With the country in the midst of a new nationwide resurgence of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations, misinformation about the effectiveness of the vaccines has been proliferating on social media, with increased attention falling on the rare number of vaccinated people ending up in the intensive care unit (ICU). However, according to dozens of hospitals across the nation surveyed by ABC News, very few fully vaccinated people are actually ending up severely ill and in the ICU with COVID-19. And experts say that those that do, tend to be frail or have conditions that interfere with the vaccine's effectiveness at producing protection. ABC News contacted 50 hospitals in 17 states, and asked them to share data on their ICU wards' current COVID-19 patients, including their vaccination status. In the surveyed hospitals, ABC News found that the overwhelming majority of COVID-19 patients currently being treated in ICUs were unvaccinated. Of the 271 total COVID patients in the surveyed ICUs, 255 patients, or approximately 94%, were unvaccinated against COVID-19 in ABC News' snapshot in time.