SOME ACTUAL DATA ABOUT BREAKTHROUGH COVID INFECTIONS

By now we've all heard about breakthrough covid cases--fully vaccinated people who still end up testing positive for covid. The standard line is that such cases are rare, that even if vaccinated people do catch covid, they are likely to have only mild symptoms. 

I've now come across some actual data, from Oklahoma and the District of Columbia, the two US state-level entities that publish detailed information about overall case rates and case rates among vaccinated citizens.

   Credit: Healthwatch Lambeth

Here's the lowdown:

In Oklahoma to date, 506,020 people out of a population of 3,956,971 have tested positive for covid. That's 12.8 percent of the population.

Of those 3,956,971 Oklahomans, 1,979,236 are fully vaccinated, either with the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine--almost exactly 50 percent. Of those nearly two million vaccinated citizens, just 2,514 have suffered a breakthrough covid infection. That's just 0.127 percent of the vaccinated group.

So, if we compare a case rate of 12.8 percent with a case rate of 0.127 percent, it looks as though unvaccinated Oklahomans are slightly more than 100 times as likely to come down with covid as their vaccinated peers.

Let's see how the stats for DC compare:

DC has a population of 705,749. Of these, to date, 52,005 have tested positive for covid, for an overall case rate of 7.37 percent.

Among the DC population, 299,020--42 percent--are fully vaccinated, again with one of the same three vaccines. Among that group there have been 546 breakthrough cases; a vaccinated case rate of 0.183 percent.

Comparing 0.183 percent vs 7.37 percent, it looks as though unvaccinated residents of DC are 40 times more likely to have had covid than their vaccinated neighbors.

As reported by Nicoletta Lanese of LiveScience.com here, the three vaccines vary consistently in their effectiveness. Here's a breakdown of the breakthrough percentages:

                         Oklahoma             DC             

Moderna              0.12                0.13            

Pfizer                    0.17                0.20

J & J                     0.21                0.32

Overall                0.127              0.183

(Note that the overall case rates for vaccinated people are not exact averages of the rates for the three vaccines because different numbers of people received each of the three vaccines.)

Based on the data from Oklahoma and DC, it would be fair to conclude that fully vaccinated people are somewhere between 40 and 100 times less likely to catch covid than are their unvaccinated fellow citizens. In addition, as has been reported, those who do have a breakthrough case are far less likely to progress to severe illness, hospitalization or death. 

Of course, further data could modify this, but for now, I'm extremely glad to be fully vaccinated, congratulate everyone who has gotten their shots, and strongly urge anyone who has not yet been vaccinated to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Being 40 to 100 times safer is a very big deal.

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REA 8/12/2021