General Colin L. Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, passed away on Monday morning due to complications arising from Covid-19 in relation to his ongoing cancer treatment. Powell served several presidents, including President George H. W. Bush and later his son, President George W. Bush, and has been active in politics up until health concerns prevented him from doing so.
Despite being fully vaccinated, at age 84, Powell was unable to fight off complications relating to Covid-19 with a weakened immune system resulting from ongoing cancer treatments:
Peggy Cifrino, Mr. Powell’s longtime aide, said that he had been successfully treated for multiple myeloma, a cancer of white blood cells in the bone marrow.
The family’s statement did not provide further details about the complications or underlying health conditions. It said he was being treated at Walter Reed National Medical Center. Other details about his health were not released, including whether he had received a booster shot, or when he had been vaccinated against the virus.
People with multiple myeloma have compromised immune systems and are thus at greater risk of developing severe Covid-19. Vaccines are also likely to be less effective in these patients.
As expected, former President George W. Bush also released a statement:
Bush said in a statement Monday that Powell was “a great public servant” who was “such a favorite of Presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom — twice. He was highly respected at home and abroad. And most important, Colin was a family man and a friend.”
Though Powell never mounted a White House bid, when he was sworn in as Bush’s secretary of state in 2001, he became the highest-ranking Black public official to date in the country, standing fourth in the presidential line of succession.
At one point, Powell was being pushed by Republicans to run for president in 1996, but ultimately he never entered politics by running for office himself. Instead, Powell became noteworthy as a Republican to endorse and vote for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Powell then championed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, often expounding on his deep opposition to Donald Trump.
Powell’s vaccination status, in this case, is noteworthy given his passing despite being fully vaccinated. Breakthrough cases at older ages, even among the vaccinated, often cause higher mortality rates:
It is not clear if Powell had received a booster dose of the vaccine. Covid-19 vaccines are a highly effective tool in preventing severe disease and death, but no vaccine is 100% effective.
More than 7,000 breakthrough cases of Covid-19 that have resulted in death have been reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through October 12. By that time, more than 187 million people in the US were fully vaccinated. That’s one out of every 26,000 fully vaccinated people who has died of Covid-19, or 0.004%.
Of those breakthrough cases resulting in death, 85% were among people age 65 and older and 57% were among men, according to the CDC.
Powell has drawn praise and criticism from both sides of the aisle at different times of his career, either from his role during the leadup to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, or his propensity to criticize and attack his own party from 2008 onward.
Colin Powell was 84 years old.
