Breakthrough Events, May 9 Part 1

The proportion of breakthrough cases and hospitalizations took a dip this week, which I am very suspicious of and believe reflects reduced staff for processing and even greater delays than we had been seeing.  The other possibility is that as cases begin to rise, given the four week or longer lag to identify that a case was in a vaxed person, we see an artifical tick downward in the proportion, that will be reversed later.   The number of deaths is so low in recent weeks that establishing any trend is really iffy.

Dave’s notes:

• 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 5/02/2022 total 6,549 cases, up from 5,210 new breakthrough cases last week. Newly reported breakthrough cases have now been increasing for 7 weeks in a row. Newly reported breakthrough hospital admissions total 241 for the week. New breakthrough deaths totaled 11, compared to 13 reported breakthrough deaths last week.
• 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 4/03/2022 added to the report. These numbers are taken from the vbtcounts.xlsx data file published by MDH on the Vaccine Breakthrough Update web page, and only include data for those 12 and over.
• Fig. 3: This chart simply plots the cases among the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations each week, as found in Fig. 2. Cases among both the fully vaccinated and not fully vaccinated increased for the week of 4/03/2022.
• 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 not fully vaccinated rose sharply for the week of 4/03/2022.
• Fig. 5: This chart displays the vaccinated and unvaccinated deaths each week from the data in Fig. 2. Death among vaccinated and unvaccinated remain at very low levels for the week of 4/03/2022, with a moderate increase in fully vaccinated deaths.
• The tables and charts are updated for new data released by Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) on 5/09/2022, adding data for the week starting 4/03/2022 and ending 4/09/2022.
• 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
• 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.
• The charts in Fig. 3 through Fig. 6 are plots of the data in Fig. 2.
• 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).