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Breakthrough Events, February 9, Ages 5 to 11

By February 15, 2023Commentary

I overlooked an important age group–our youngest children.  This data shows zero reason to vax kids, particularly given that there is some risk of adverse events.

Dave’s notes:

  1. The following charts show how vaccination status affects the risk of testing positive or being hospitalized with Covid for the 5-11 age group. In general, for the 5-11 age group, vaccination appears to offer very modest protection for being hospitalized with Covid. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) does not publish breakthrough death data or booster data for the 5-11 and 12-17 age groups, so it is impossible for us to comment on booster effectiveness in Minnesota from this data.. The underlying data for these charts was published by MDH on 2/09/2023 with data ending the week starting 1/15/2023.
  2. We have recently documented fairly extensively the issue of the population basis used by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) affecting the 65+ age group. Note that MDH calculates the unvaccinated population by starting with the estimated age group population and then subtracting the vaccinated and the boosted populations. Any discrepancy made in the initial population assumption then directly causes the same size discrepancy in the size of the unvaccinated population. The 5-11 age group population is largely unchanged in recent years. As we discuss here, https://healthy-skeptic.com/2022/12/02/census-estimate-background/, when the population increases the rates per 100k are lower than the rates published by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). The 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-Year population estimate, which we believe most accurately accounts for the population in 2021, is little different than the 2019 ACS 5-Year population used by MDH, and therefore the resulting case and hospitalization rates per 100k are little changed as well.
  3. This post is an update of the breakthrough charts for the 5-11 age group most recently published on 1/11/2023 here: https://healthy-skeptic.com/2023/01/11/breakthrough-events-ages-5-to-11-3/.
  4. There are 6 charts in this set, 3 charts each for cases and hospital admissions. Each set of 3 charts consists of the actual events per week (cases or admissions); the rate per 100k each week, and the proportion of events compared to the proportion of the vaccinated or unvaccinated population.
  5. Fig. 1, Minnesota Covid Cases Per Week, 5-11 Age Group: This chart plots the cases in the 5-11 year old age group per week among the unvaccinated and the vaccinated but not boosted populations each week. The number of Covid cases among these two groups continue to be very similar, and has been in a gradually declining trend since May 2022.
  6. Fig. 2, Minnesota Covid Cases Per 100k per Week: This chart displays the case rates per 100k in the 5-11 year old age group. The cases per 100k for the vaccinated and unvaccinated have been virtually identical since July 2022. Since the rates per 100k for the vaccinated and unvaccinated are identical the risk to an individual of testing positive is unaffected by vaccination status. Note that using the 2021 ACS 1-Year population estimate (dotted blue line) rather than the 2019 ACS 5-Year population estimate as used by MDH (sold blue line) results in virtually no change in the cases per 100k for the unvaccinated.
  7. Fig. 3, Minnesota Proportion of Covid Cases Per Week by Vaccination Status: This chart displays the proportion of the 5-11 year old population who are unvaccinated (solid blue) and who are vaccinated but not boosted (solid green). For each population group we also display the proportion of cases each week (dashed lines of same color). Until December 2021 vaccination offered protection against testing positive for this age group. From December 2021 to July 2022 the vaccinated proportion of cases (dashed green line) has generally been higher than the vaccinated proportion of population (solid green line), while the unvaccinated have been underrepresented. Since November 2022 the unvaccinated have tended to have a slightly greater proportion of cases compared to the vaccinated.
  8. Fig. 4-6: These charts display the hospital admissions, hospital admission rates per 100k, and hospital admissions proportions for the 5-11 year old age group, in an identical format to the case charts in Fig. 1 through Fig. 3. The unvaccinated have had somewhat higher numbers of admissions to the vaccinated throughout 2022. The absolute number of admissions for Covid per week are very small, with 2 unvaccinated Covid admissions the week of 1/15/2023, and no vaccinated Covid admission (Fig. 4). The admissions rate per 100k for the unvaccinated is generally higher than the rate for the vaccinated for the past several months, with the use of the 2021 ACS 1-Year population estimate (dotted blue line) having no impact on the unvaccinated admissions rates(Fig. 5). Fig. 6 shows that the small number of admissions makes it difficult to compare the proportion of admissions to the proportion of vaccinations. Overall, it does appear that the vaccinated are slightly less likely to be hospitalized than the unvaccinated.
  9. All data is obtained from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Vaccine Breakthrough Weekly Update web site https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html. A data file on this site, vbtpedscirates.xlsx, contains all of the age group data.
  10. MDH defines the fully vaccinated (what we have termed vaccinated but not boosted) as those who have not received a booster after completing their primary vaccination series, and had been vaccinated at least 14 days prior to testing positive.

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