General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This woman is ON FIRE!!! She knows her numbers!! [View all]Ms. Toad
(34,072 posts)Those are snapshots which represent what was, in the good old days. The past, especially when you are discussing what happens to those vaccinated, is not predictive of the future (i.e. it can't tell you your chance of getting infected).
COVID has been around 19 months. Vaccines have been around for 8 months, and fully available for only 5 months. On May 1, the CDC chose to stop uniformly tracking asymptomatic or mild COVID cases in the unvaccinated - so the breakthrough cases known to the CDC since May are largely those in individuals who were hospitalized or died; the remaining are simply reported as COVID cases (i.e. they are in the 1/8 - but are not, by and large, counted specifically as breakthrough cases.) Because of this, much of the data about breakthrough cases was gathered when cases were low, mitigation (social distancing, masking, etc.) were in play, and Delta was barely known, since routine tracking of breakthrough cases stopped in May.
So you are comparing 19 months of relatively complete data for unvaccinated individuals with 5-8 months of much more incomplete data for vaccinated people.
Yes - vaccinations are a fantastic tool. I was vaccinated as soon as the vaccine was available for my group - and will get the booster as soon as recommended.
No - vaccines are not the be-all, end-all, nor are they as protective as this misleading use of numbers represents. They need to be combined with masking and social distancing.
* My employee (fully vaccinated and extremely careful) tested positive this morning (likely infected by her children who just started back to school - the only people she doesnt' mask around)
* Prior to the first day of classes, my employee and I were collectively exposed 3 times - twice by people who were fully vaccinated
* In the same week as those exposures, my nephew-in-law (also fully vaccinated) came down with COVID
There are a lot more breakthrough cases out there than are being reported as breakthrough cases.