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Breakthrough Events, April 25, Part 1

By April 29, 2022Commentary

More of the same, with breakthroughs accounting for the majority of events and a growing proportion of events.  Note again that the data lags by at least four weeks by date of event due to how fully vaccinated is defined.

Dave’s notes:

  1. 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, as published on the Vaccine Breakthrough Update web page https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html. New breakthrough cases announced on 4/25/2022 total 3,663 cases, up from 2,560 new breakthrough cases last week. Newly reported breakthrough cases have now been increasing for 6 weeks in a row. Newly reported breakthrough hospital admissions total 171 for the week, and remain highly variable. New breakthrough deaths totaled 19, compared to 14 reported breakthrough deaths last week.
  2. Fig. 2: This table displays the total cases, hospital admissions, and deaths that occurred each week among the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, with the latest week of 3/20/2022 added to the report. These numbers are taken from the vbtcounts.xlsx data file published by MDH on the Vaccine Breakthrough Update web page. We noted weeks ago that we discovered an apparent discrepancy in MDH’s published data compared to a data we obtained through a Government Data Practices Act request. We still believe that there are missing breakthrough cases, hospital admissions, and deaths that are not reported in this data, but there has no response from MDH about our concerns. Note that a majority of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to be among the vaccinated each week. The proportion of breakthrough cases and hospital admissions each reached new record highs for the week of 3/20/2022, the newest week reported.
  3. Fig. 3: This chart simply plots the cases among the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations each week, as found in Fig. 2. Cases among the vaccinated increased very slightly for the week of 3/20/2022.
  4. Fig. 4: This chart displays the hospital admissions among the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations each week from the data in Fig. 2. Covid hospital admissions for both the vaccinated and unvaccinated continued to decline the week of 3/20/2022.
  5. Fig. 5: This chart displays the vaccinated and unvaccinated deaths each week from the data in Fig. 2. Deaths among the vaccinated increased slightly the week of 3/20/2022.
  6. The tables and charts are updated for new data released by Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) on 4/25/2022, adding data for the week starting 3/20/2022 and ending 3/26/2022.
  7. 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
  8. The data source for Fig. 2 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.
  9. The charts in Fig. 3 through Fig. 6 are plots of the data in Fig. 2.
  10. 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.

 

Join the discussion 4 Comments

  • Brenda says:

    I’m interested In your opinion as to what it means about the vaccine? Not that it’s an epidemic of the vaccinated

    • Kevin Roche says:

      It appears to me that over a short time effectiveness against infection goes to zero. Effectiveness against serious disease, as measured by hospitalization and death, tends to hold up much better, but does decline somewhat.

  • Peggy A Lewis says:

    “It appears to me that over a short time effectiveness against infection goes to zero.”

    I don’t believe that is “new” news. There never was protection against infection…at least not as far as I know. I’m willing to believe there was protection, albeit for a short increment of time, in reducing risk of death and hospitalization in the older/vulnerable crowd (Where we needed it) but not infection itself.

    My small subset of clients would support this. People were vaccinated and got CV-19, then boosted and got CV-19 and now boosted again and still getting CV-19…many twice.

    Unless I’m missing something, the data seems to show that protection against infection was never feasible. It seems exposure to the SP may have saved some lives of the vulnerable but that Covid-19 just spread, mutated and infected as it saw fit.

    And we nearly ruined an entire society for those vaccines.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      protection against infection appears pretty good until about 6 months and then declines more rapidly. There is protection against hosp and death at a high level for a significant time but it too appears to begin to lessen although not to anywhere near the same extent as does that against infection

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