CDC stats on breakthrough infection (minus the media hysteria)

[hal]

I noticed gov't and health officials everywhere were showing their displeasure with the media overreacting to breakthrough numbers.

[rgG]

It has made me far less likely to eat out at a restaurant now.
I have no problem going back to wearing a mask in stores, but I will miss finally being able to enjoy eating out more.
I hope the vaccine rates will continue to rise.
Also heard that FL reported the highest number of cases ever today. WTH?

[Ombligo]

164 million x .001 mortality is still 164,000 murdered by anti-vax, anti-mask idiots.

[PeterB]

I think the big problem is, how are they defining "breakthrough infection" ? As has been discussed here already, it's possible for a fully vaccinated person to get corona and have a mild-to-moderate upper respiratory infection only, or not even that and be apparently completely asymptomatic.

There has been some disagreement about the data, but at one recent point, it was claimed that the infected, vaccinated person can as easily infect others as an infected, unvaccinated person with Delta. So the "breakthrough rate" may not actually be that low -- but it also wouldn't matter that the breakthrough rate was high, except for the fact that there are so many unvaccinated still around.

The way I'm thinking about it is: suppose EVERYONE were vaccinated. There's no question that even under that circumstance, the virus could still potentially infect some people and be transmitted from person to person (since the vaccines are of course not 100%) ... nevertheless, the rates of everything would be dramatically reduced across the board, and the final death toll would be really, really low. It might even be akin to the common cold... that it goes around and around and around, and yes, some people get sick, but very, very few actually get severe illness or die. That's what I see the ultimate goal as being... we'll never be rid of this virus, but if we can get it to the point of being no more dangerous than the common cold.

[mattkime]

Ombligo wrote:
164 million x .001 mortality is still 164,000 murdered by anti-vax, anti-mask idiots.

`.001` was a percentage, so it was really

164 million x .00001 mortality = 1,640

Still terrible.

[Sarcany]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/28/cdc-need...-says.html



CDC needs to start tracking all Covid breakthrough infections, Gottlieb says


The CDC stopped tracking every breakthrough case in the U.S. on May 1, focusing just on those that result in hospitalization or death, a move physicians and scientists are increasingly criticizing.

"They don't have good real-time reporting," Gottlieb said. "We need to fix this, and this can be fixed. I mean we can properly resource them and build out better capabilities there."

With cases surging across the U.S. and new research showing that fully vaccinated people can transmit the virus as asymptomatic carriers, the scientific community is increasingly calling on the agency to track every breakthrough case, which is when fully vaccinated people test positive for Covid.

More than 5,900 fully vaccinated Americans have either died or been hospitalized with Covid breakthrough infections through July 19, according to the CDC's most recent data. The website also notes that 1,821 of those cases were either "asymptomatic or not related to Covid-19."

...There is varying data on the effectiveness of vaccines against the delta strain, but if mRNA vaccines are 90% to 95% effective in general, then someone who is fully vaccinated and exposed to the delta strain has a 1-in-10 or 1-in-20 chance of getting a breakthrough infection.

...People infected with the delta variant carry up to 1,000 times more virus in their nasal passages than other strains, resulting in higher transmissibility. New CDC data indicates that people who are vaccinated can carry the same amount of virus as someone who is unvaccinated.'

[hal]

This just in: 164,059,080 fully vaccinated Americans have not contracted Covid after receiving the vaccine!

(stolen from twitter)

[deckeda]

“Breakthrough” became (or likely always was) a casual description for, “Although vaxxed I got Covid AND I have symptoms that make me feel sick.”

BAM, there’s your news story, because apparently lots of folks misunderstood what a vaccine is and what a vaccine is not.

Group A is now sure vaccines were always a waste of time.
Group B hates that Group A now has something to chew on, however false.

Group C says that if everyone would shut up and get jabbed, we wouldn’t be arguing over masks and other things that disrupt our cherished trip to another mediocre restaurant.

[Janit]

PeterB wrote:
I think the big problem is, how are they defining "breakthrough infection" ? As has been discussed here already, it's possible for a fully vaccinated person to get corona and have a mild-to-moderate upper respiratory infection only, or not even that and be apparently completely asymptomatic.

There has been some disagreement about the data, but at one recent point, it was claimed that the infected, vaccinated person can as easily infect others as an infected, unvaccinated person with Delta. So the "breakthrough rate" may not actually be that low -- but it also wouldn't matter that the breakthrough rate was high, except for the fact that there are so many unvaccinated still around.

The way I'm thinking about it is: suppose EVERYONE were vaccinated. There's no question that even under that circumstance, the virus could still potentially infect some people and be transmitted from person to person (since the vaccines are of course not 100%) ... nevertheless, the rates of everything would be dramatically reduced across the board, and the final death toll would be really, really low. It might even be akin to the common cold... that it goes around and around and around, and yes, some people get sick, but very, very few actually get severe illness or die. That's what I see the ultimate goal as being... we'll never be rid of this virus, but if we can get it to the point of being no more dangerous than the common cold.

Yes, I think this is the best way to think about it, with the caveat that even with high levels of vaccination, an endemic delta variant would still cause serious illness in people for whom the vaccine is contraindicated. So not yet quite like the common cold.

Given the present incidence of the delta variant, maximal vaccination has become just the first step, in that it dramatically reduces mortality. The next step will be an updated vaccine that interferes with delta's ability to generate high viral loads and thus lowers the contagion. Of course, there could be yet another dangerous variant, so that we may be playing whack-a-mole for a while. Everyone who can should take every new vaccine as it is developed.

This makes me wonder about the evolutionary history of our endemic "common cold" coronaviruses. Did they follow a similar pattern of starting with serious illness, generating variants, and finally achieving a benign equilibrium after a long period of co-evolution?

[Janit]

deckeda wrote:
“Breakthrough” became (or likely always was) a casual description for, “Although vaxxed I got Covid AND I have symptoms that make me feel sick.”

BAM, there’s your news story, because apparently lots of folks misunderstood what a vaccine is and what a vaccine is not.

Group A is now sure vaccines were always a waste of time.
Group B hates that Group A now has something to chew on, however false.

Group C says that if everyone would shut up and get jabbed, we wouldn’t be arguing over masks and other things that disrupt our cherished trip to another mediocre restaurant.

Even if everyone who can take the vaccine gets jabbed, masks will still be necessary until an updated vaccine is developed that can prevent the low-grade/asymptomatic delta infections that can still pass the infection on to people who cannot take the vaccine.

There may be several iterations before this virus becomes manageable.