By Guy Page

Vermont Daily Chronicle

Just eight of the 33 Vermonters who died of  Covid-19 in September were unvaccinated, the Vermont Department of Heath said Wednesday.

Health Department spokesperson Ben Truman said most of the vaccine  ‘breakthrough’ Covid-19 fatalities were elderly. Because they were among the first vaccinated, Vermont’s elderly “have had more time to potentially become a vaccine breakthrough case,” he said.

Expressed in percentages, 76% of Vermont Covid-19 fatalities were breakthrough cases. As of Tuesday, 88 percent of all eligible Vermonters (age 12 and over) had been vaccinated with at least one shot.

At Tuesday’s press conference, the Department of Health September mortality statistics did not show a vaccinated/unvaccinated breakdown. Despite recent emphatic references by Gov. Phil Scott and Health Department Commissioner Mark Levine to a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” the per capita rate of vaccinated breakthrough deaths has risen in recent weeks.

Vermont Daily Chronicle asked Health Department spokesman Ben Truman Tuesday for a vaxxed/unvaxxed breakdown of the 33 September deaths. The full text of his email appears below:

“Eight of the 33 deaths in September were not vaccinated.