From the pandemic’s delta variant to the omicron periods, there was a 15% drop in In-hospital mortality rates. Most of the deaths that did occur were in adults aged 65 years and older who had three or more underlying conditions, according to new federal data.

The decline in in-hospital mortality is attributed to the waning infectiousness of COVID-19 variants over time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday. But the “risk for severe COVID-19 increases with age, disability and underlying medical conditions,” the CDC reminded clinicians and the public.

The data analysis, published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, is yet another in a series that have consistently revealed the vulnerability of older, frail adults to severe COVID-19 and its complications. Long-term care residents account for a larger proportion of omicron hospitalizations among the vaccinated, for example.

But vaccination and prophylactic measures such as monoclonal antibody treatment continue to significantly reduce the risk of adverse outcomes in frail seniors and the immunocompromised adults, the CDC’s investigators said.

“Vaccination, early treatment and appropriate nonpharmaceutical interventions remain important public health priorities to prevent COVID-19 deaths, especially among persons most at risk,” they concluded.

Federal health authorities continue to encourage qualified older adults to receive a booster of the newly authorized, bivalent vaccines made by Moderna or Pfizer to protect themselves against the omicron variant and its currently circulating sublineages, BA.4 and BA.5.

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