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Breakthrough Events, March 7

By March 8, 2022Commentary

While the total number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths continues to decline, for some reason DOH still seems to be doing a lot of late processing, which likely affects breakthrough identification even more.  At some point we are likely to see a big catchup on breakthrough numbers.  Dave’s notes on this week’s report:

  1. The table and charts are updated for new data released by Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) on 3/07/2022, adding data for the week starting 1/30/2022 and ending 2/05/2022. This time period starts well after the peak of the Omicron case surge in Minnesota, which peaked on 1/10/2022. All cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are dropping rapidly, whether vaccinated or not.
  2. The data source for the data on Fig. 1 is the cumulative breakthrough cases, hospitalizations, and deaths published on the MDH COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Weekly Update https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html
  3. The data source for Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 is the data file https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbtcounts.xlsx found on MDH web page https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html. The data provided in the data file vbtcounts.xlsx is used without modification, other than to sum the weekly events and compute the breakthrough proportion. Vbtcounts.xlsx provides breakthrough and non-breakthrough cases, hospital admissions, and deaths for each week listed.
  4. The data source for the breakthrough proportions by age group (Fig. 4 through Fig. 7) is the data file vbtcirates.xlsx, found on the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) web page: https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbtcirates.xlsx . This data file gives the rates per 100k of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in full vaccinated and not fully vaccinated people, broken out by age group. The rates per 100k in vbtcirates.xlsx are converted into cases, hospitalizations, and deaths by multiplying by the appropriate population. The number of vaccinated people by age group can found on the Vaccine Data page, https://mn.gov/covid19/vaccine/data/index.jsp , in the data file People Vaccinated by Age. The unvaccinated population is found by taking the US Census American Community Survey 5-Year Estimate (Data Table S0101, https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table) and subtracting the vaccinated population. The breakthrough proportion is then found by dividing the breakthrough events by the total of the breakthrough and non-breakthrough weekly events.
  5. MDH defines a breakthrough event as a Covid case, hospital admission, or death that occurs 14 or more days after completing the vaccination series (not including boosters).
  6. Fig 1: This table is the weekly announced cumulative breakthrough cases, hospital admissions, and deaths, as well as the weekly totals, and change in weekly totals. New breakthrough cases announced on 3/07/2022 total just 3,900 cases. We note that MDH is still reporting new Covid cases that had a specimen collection date in December and January,  so there are still clearly older breakthrough cases yet to be reported.
  7. Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, Overall Breakthrough Proportions: The overall proportion of breakthrough cases of total cases for the week starting 1/30/2022 was 64.2%, just below the record high of 65.3%. The proportion of breakthrough hospitalizations is at 51.6%, also slightly below the record of 52.4% of all hospitalizations set last week. Breakthrough deaths were slightly lower than the record high at 53.1%..
  8. Fig. 4 through Fig. 7: Breakthrough Proportions by Age Group: The breakthrough proportion of cases are generally little changed in all age groups for the week starting 1/30/2022. The proportion of breakthrough deaths for the 18-49 age group was 0% for the week of 1/30/2022, as there were no breakthrough deaths, and only 1 not fully vaccinated death in this age group.

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