Estimated 5,800 'breakthrough' COVID infections reported among 77 million people

[TomCADem]

Source: MSN/NY Daily News

An estimated 5,800 people of the 77 million fully vaccinated against COVID-19 — about 0.0001% — have reported becoming sickened with the fast-spreading disease despite being inoculated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the figures on Thursday, vowing to keep “a close eye” on the so-called “breakthrough infections.” A spokesperson for the agency told NBC News that about 29% of the cases were asymptomatic while only about 7% resulted in hospitalizations, including 74 people who died.

So far, just over 40% of the breakthrough infections were in people 60 or older and 65% were female.

Health experts with the CDC said they are currently monitoring reported cases “for clustering by patient demographics, geographic location, time since vaccination, vaccine type or lot number, and SARS-CoV-2 lineage.”

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/estimated-5800-breakthrough-covid-infections-reported-among-77-million-people-who-are-fully-vaccinated/ar-BB1fJemb?li=BBnbfcL

---

That is pretty darn impressive and better then what I think most people expected based on clinical trial efficacy rates. Nonetheless, you are going to have Republicans like Gym Jordan and Tucker Carlson continuing to spread COVID-19 disinformation.

[soothsayer]

1. If the media cared, they'd use 0.0001% in the headline

But they don’t try to help, really.

[jimlup]

13. But that is misleading because...

it doesn't account for the fact that in the current situation most of the people in the denominator would not have gotten Covid even without the vaccination.

The true % number needs a control group and I've found no information on what this number might be. If they used the .00001% headline it would be extremely misleading to most people.

[soothsayer]

14. Fair point

[mahina]

2. I get .00007532

Wierd

[progree]

3. Me too. Which is .007532% or about .01% with roundup (1 in 10,000)

[mahina]

4. Raja

✅

[Kaleva]

6. We are doomed!

[C Moon]

18. :D

[groundloop]

5. I'm curious how many of those took a preemptive anti-inflammatory before their shot

I've heard of a good many people taking pain relief before getting the vaccine in the hopes of curbing some of the side effects, which is known to reduce the body's response to the vaccine and thus reduce the vaccine effectiveness. The CDC says it's ok to take an anti-inflammatory the day after receiving the vaccine, but definitely not before hand.

[TimeToGo]

9. Not sure the warning was that straightforward

[torius]

43. They tell you it's fine to get the shot when on antiobiotics

but some antibiotics (including the very common azithromycin) have an anti-inflammatory properties. It's confusing.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22766077/
Also, azithro takes 15 1/2 days to go out of your body after the last dose.

[enid602]

7. general population

How many people in the general population were diagnosed with covid, hospitalized or suffered death during the same period of time?

[oldsoftie]

27. I'd like to know that too. nt

[Hugh_Lebowski]

8. So lets see ...

600000/328000000 = .0018 = .18% chance of dying of covid for any given unvaccinated person (obviously that varies with age and other things, but overall)

74/77000000 = .00000096 = .000096% odds of dying of covid for any given vaccinated person.

Thus, not getting vaccination increases the odds of dying of covid by a factor of 1,900 TIMES.

Of course that count of 74 is still early in the game, but still ...

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Great Perspective, Hugh!

Comparing apples to apples!

[Shermann]

31. There's a fundamental problem with your statistics

The 600000 number (rounded up from 566000) was over a period longer than a year, while the 74 number was just a couple months.

[Shermann]

11. There is an aspect here to be concerned about

Of the 5,800 breakthrough cases, 7% were hospitalized and 74 died. That's a death rate of 1.3%. The mostly non-vaccinated overall death rate is 1.8%, and the hospitalization rate is similar to 7%. While the chance of infection is demonstrably reduced by the vaccines, the chances of having a severe outcome if you do get infected appears to be largely unchanged. This appears to contradict the messaging from Fauci a few weeks ago.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. It would also be interesting to know what

pre-existing conditions those people might have had.

[Shermann]

17. Vulnerable groups did get the vaccine first

That does skew the numbers. But I'm just not seeing the dramatic reduction here I was expecting.

I don't want to beat up on Fauci. But at one point he claimed the vaccines were 100% effective at preventing death from covid. I was suspicious of that claim at the time due to the limited amount of data it was based on. Now it is demonstrably false. It's not even close.

[wnylib]

21. I am a senior who had a weak reaction to

the shots. I also have some health conditions. So covid is still as risky to me now as it has been since it started.

Disappointing, but at least good that I know this.

[Shermann]

23. I wouldn't go that far, the chance of infection is dramatically reduced for all groups

In the grand scheme of things the vaccines are still a slam dunk

[wnylib]

24. I wouldn't call it a slam dunk, since

there are still a lot of people refusing to get vaccinated. But anything that helps to reduce the spread is good. So I will still consider myself at risk of hospitalization or death if I get it and take appropriate precautions. But the risk of getting it will eventually diminish for me as more people are vaccinated. In my situation, I cannot afford to view it any other way. Not when 40% of breakthrough cases were seniors.

[Shermann]

25. I wouldn't worry about that 40% number

I don't know the exact numbers but I'd guess 40% of the vaccinated have been seniors up to this point.

My disappointment is I feel like one of the chances has been taken away. The vaccine was supposed to provide two chances, one great change to avoid infection, and then a really great chance to avoid a serious outcome if you do get a breakthrough infection.

In reality it looks like we get just the first. But that's still great.

[womanofthehills]

45. the problem I have noticed- some of my friends who have gotten the vaccine are getting lax

about wearing masks. Sounds like in the below story, the woman let her guard down when caring for her sick kids.

The Shock and Reality of Catching Covid After Being Vaccinated

Robin Hauser, a pediatrician in Tampa, Fla., got covid in February. What separates her from the vast majority of the tens of millions of other Americans who have come down with the virus is this: She got sick seven weeks after her second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
https://khn.org/news/article/the-shock-and-reality-of-catching-covid-after-being-vaccinated

[oldsoftie]

26. But 74 deaths out of 77 million is about as good as its going to get.

According to these numbers, Covid is NOT nearly as dangerous to a vaccinated you as it was in the beginning.

[Shermann]

29. Agreed

Pre-infection, your odds are very good.

Post-infection, it looks to be a wash. And the therapeutics really haven't made the great strides the vaccines have.

I trust Fauci will move to a more accurate position on this like he did with the masks.

[TomCADem]

19. Not really. Because If You Start With the Premise...

...of people in breakthrough cases, which are a rarity to begin with, then that is not what the CDC is referring to. To have an apples to apples comparison, you have to compare a population of people who are not vaccinated to a population of people who are vaccinated. The fallacy in using breakthrough cases is that you are already using a very rare subset of vaccinated people. Also, 1.3% is 25 percent less than 1.8 percent, which is still a significant improvement.

[Shermann]

20. Fauci's claim was regarding the probability of death following infection in a vaccinated individual

His assertion at the time was based on a few dozen breakthrough cases in the clinical trials. Now we have thousands of those cases to look at. Where's the fallacy?

[TomCADem]

40. I Think Fauci's Claim Was Based on The Evidence to Date...

...and the fallacy is that only 5,800 people got COVID. Vaccines are effective, but they not that effective. As explained in this video, vaccines can significantly mitigate or eliminate symptoms. Assuming that vaccines are as effective in the real world as they are in clinical trials, then far more people than 5,800 out of the tens of millions who have been vaccinated got COVID, but are either asymptomatic or whose symptoms are so mild that they are not bothering to take a test, because they have vaccine, thus they do not think they have COVID, which is why the CDC recommends that people still wear masks even if they had the vaccine.

At work, I saw one co-worker walking around without a mask. When I asked him about it, he said, "Oh, I got the vaccine." The vaccine is not a forcefield and the clinical data is that you are not 100 percent immune.

[LisaL]

28. A few weeks ago Fauci was going by the results of clinical trials.

Nobody died in vaccine groups in clinical trials (for either Moderna or Pfizer).
When a lot more people are involved, some people do die even after being vaccinated.

[Shermann]

30. Right but the death rate is pretty low even in unvaccinated people

So there really wasn't enough data on breakthrough cases during the clinical trials to make the kind of assertions he was making.

[mwb970]

12. This is, of course, statistically insignificant.

[wnylib]

22. Not if you are a vaccinated senior

with health issues who had a weak response to the vaccine. For us, it is very significant and good to know so we don't relax precautions.

[mwb970]

33. I meant that 5800 out of 75 million rounds to zero.

[wnylib]

35. The survivors among that 5800

and the friends and relatives of the ones who did not survive would be pleased to know that, I'm sure.

Statistically it is a small number - so far. But it is important for vulnerable people to remember that vaccines are not 100% effective so precautions are still necessary for us. To us, that is the significance of the report.

[mwb970]

39. When was it said that vaccines are 100% effective?

This low number of infections among the vaccinated shows that they are very effective, although not 100%. trump cultists are using this result to show that they "do not work", which I object to.

I'm really not sure exactly what your point is, but I have said all I am going to say about this.

[BootinUp]

16. amazingly effective. nt

[RussBLib]

32. It's not over

Dammit. We will be dealing with this for a long time.

[speak easy]

34. 95% effectiveness does not equal 100% effectiveness.

[Shermann]

41. 95% of the time it works 100% of the time

[Maxheader]

36. Glad its kinda working.

But they've a ways to go....

[FakeNoose]

37. Good to know

Even though I've had both shots, there's still a tiny chance that I might contract Covid. The vaccination has taken death off the table. I might still get the virus, but it would be a way less severe version, and I won't die from it.

OK I can live with that.

[Woodwizard]

38. That's great.

Getting my second Pfizer on the 21st

[Justice matters.]

42. Getting vaccinated doesn't mean instant protection.

It takes many days or even weeks to reach the percentage of immunity, so perhaps some of these numbers thought, well, no more need for masks, social distancing and hand washing right away?

That's not how it works (unfortunately).

[womanofthehills]

44. Israeli study - South African variant may evade protection from Pfizer vaccine, Israeli study says

The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa may evade the protection provided by Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is very low and the research has not been peer reviewed.

The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated patients with the disease.

The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to make up about 1% of all the COVID-19 cases across all the people studied, according to the study by Tel Aviv University and Israel's largest healthcare provider, Clalit.

But among patients who had received two doses of the vaccine, the variant's prevalence rate was eight times higher than those unvaccinated - 5.4% versus 0.7%.

This suggests the vaccine is less effective against the South African variant, compared with the original coronavirus and a variant first identified in Britain that has come to comprise nearly all COVID-19 cases in Israel, the researchers said..

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/south-african-variant-can-break-through-pfizer-vaccine-israeli-study-says-2021-04-10/