White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday defended President Joe Biden’s description of the COVID-19 pandemic as cases and hospitalizations among the vaccinated soar. Psaki, who recently got the disease despite having received a primary regimen and a booster shot, recounted during a briefing in Washington that she only suffered minor symptoms, an experience she attributed to being vaccinated. Psaki then claimed that unvaccinated people are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and 20 times more likely to die. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers said in a preprint study that hospitalization rates for COVID-19 between Jan. 24, 2021, and July 24, 2021, were 17 times higher in unvaccinated persons, but that gap has closed more recently as the Omicron virus variant emerged and vaccine effectiveness waned. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, citing unpublished data, alleged last month that unvaccinated people are 20 times …