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Medicine

99.992% of Fully Vaccinated People Have Dodged COVID, CDC Data Shows (arstechnica.com) 143

Posted by BeauHD from the extraordinary-calculations dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Cases of COVID-19 are extremely rare among people who are fully vaccinated, according to a new data analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among more than 75 million fully vaccinated people in the US, just around 5,800 people reported a "breakthrough" infection, in which they became infected with the pandemic coronavirus despite being fully vaccinated. The numbers suggest that breakthroughs occur at the teeny rate of less than 0.008 percent of fully vaccinated people -- and that over 99.992 percent of those vaccinated have not contracted a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The figures come from a nationwide database that the CDC set up to keep track of breakthrough infections and monitor for any concerning signs that the breakthroughs may be clustering by patient demographics, geographic location, time since vaccination, vaccine type, or vaccine lot number. The agency will also be keeping a close eye on any breakthrough infections that are caused by SARS-CoV-2 variants, some of which have been shown to knock back vaccine efficacy. [...] The extraordinary calculation that 99.992 percent of vaccinated people have not contracted the virus may reflect that they all simply have not been exposed to the virus since being vaccinated. Also, there are likely cases missed in reporting. Still, the data is a heartening sign. As for the "breakthroughs," the agency says many of them occurred in older people, who are more vulnerable to COVID-19. There are some scattered through every age group, but more than 40 percent were in people ages 60 and above.

"We see [breakthroughs] with all vaccines," top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said in a press briefing earlier this week. "No vaccine is 100 percent efficacious or effective, which means that you will always see breakthrough infections regardless of the efficacy of your vaccine."
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99.992% of Fully Vaccinated People Have Dodged COVID, CDC Data Shows More

99.992% of Fully Vaccinated People Have Dodged COVID, CDC Data Shows

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  • Need the unvaccinated infection rate to compare (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CmdrPorno ( 115048 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @09:02AM (#61280034)

    This statistic looks encouraging, but is not really useful without knowing the rate of unvaccinated people who dodged COVID during the same time period. I'm guessing that is pretty high, as well.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      There's probably some assumptions and maybe my math is wrong...

      Total U.S. Infections: 31,231,869 [cdc.gov]
      Minus "around 5,800": 31,226,000

      Total U.S. Population: 330,209,000 [census.gov]
      Minus 75,000,000 vaccinated: 255,209,000

      31,226,000 out of 255,209,000 is about 12%, or 88% non-vaccinated, non-infected.



      Of course both of those numbers are factoring in things like mask-wearing, social distancing etc. So it's not like the body necessarily has a "natural" resistance to COVID at 88% vs the vaccine at 99%

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )

        I think I'd go with the 7 day number (since vaccines are relatively new).

        So ~150 per 100,000 in the last 7 days. 300MM /100K * 150 = 450K cases last 7 days (1.5%).

        CDC says 15% fully vaccinated 3/29

        If we assume all breakthroughs happened in 7 days (this obviously exaggerates the number for this purpose), you'd expect 450k * .15 = 67.5K

        So using assumptions skewed against the vaccine it appears to be 90% effective at total prevention.

        Also, with only 1 death in the vaccinated group, it's extremely effective th

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          "In an emailed statement, a CDC spokesperson said the majority of people with breakthrough infections were not hospitalized, and 29 percent had asymptomatic infections.

          In addition, 65 percent of the cases were in women, and just over 40 percent were in people ages 60 and up. Seven percent of people were hospitalized, and 74 people died."

          Still strong results, but more than 1 death.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AvitarX ( 172628 )

            Thanks, I don't know why I remember reading 1 (recently).

            I probably did something stupid like rounded it to 1 in a million, and then just forgot everything but the 1.

      • That compares vaccinated and exposed at the recent exposure levels with unvaccinated and exposed over the entire course of the epidemic, as the number of active cases (emitting virus) rose and fell a lot. It also overstates the number of unvaccinated during that period because the near availability of the first vaccine wasn't even announced until the day after the presidential election.

        You can get a closer number for the unvaccinated infection rate by using the averaged new infections rate over the last m

        • Death rate always drops more slowly than infection rate, because many sick people last weeks or months in the hospital before eventually dying.

          No need for conspiracies about faking data here.

          • Death rate always drops more slowly than infection rate, because many sick people last weeks or months in the hospital before eventually dying.

            No need for conspiracies about faking data here.

            Sounds plausible.

            But then why don't we see a similar slower-than-cases drop in Germany, UK, or more than maybe a tad in Denmark? (to name three of the four I checked - Israel being too small and noisy) Their hospital care isn't so poor or overloaded, compared to that in California, or their post-vaccine drops so gradua

    • Assume 300 cases per day per million. Average fully vaccinated 20 days. Gives 6000 cases per million or 0.6% expected. This is 80 times higher that the .008% fully vaccinated rate

    • Well let's see.

      5,800 out of ~75 million vaccinated got infected anyway, 0.0077%

      Vaccines were starting to roll out roughly 4 months ago. So for "the same time period" let's choose Dec 14th which is when the first vaccinations were being done.

      Since Dec 14th, 2020, there have been 14.7M new cases. US population is ~328M, so that's 4.48%

      But we should reasonably subtract everyone who had gotten COVID-19 prior to that from the population, since it's exceedingly rare anyone gets it twice, right? There were 16,565,

      • 5,800 out of ~75 million vaccinated got infected anyway, 0.0077%

        This also doesn't account for the fact that not everyone was vaccinated on day one. Quite a large percentage only had the second shot in the last few weeks. If you got that 5,800 number as an extrapolation from the percentage, it's likely way too high.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )

        I'd double your vaccinated percent since there wasn't 75 million vaccinated December 14th.

        Double because assuming a linear rate of vaccination, so the average number of vaccinated people in that range is half the current number, this assumption is false, it's probably make more sense to triple it. So 200x.

        I did a very ungenerous for vaccines napkin math and got 10x, but I think I may be off by an order of magnitude looking at other numbers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Also how do they know that the person didn't contact COVID but simply have no symptoms. Some younger people have reported no symptoms even after testing positive.

      I'm asking because some people, like me, have auto-immune issues that react to infection. A bug that most people might not even notice can have a big effect on us.

      • It definitely seems to be the case that fully vaccinated people can not only contract the virus asymptomatically, but also spread it. I'm not sure to what degree we have groups with periodic scheduled post-vaccination COVID swabs to collect stats on this. Having an autoimmune disorder means you'll probably have a relatively strong immune response to the vaccine since your immune system is very active/overactive.

        So get the vaccine but plan to feel really miserable. But then you likely will never develop a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      The first US vaccinations were given December 14. Their second shot should have been 21 days later, and full vaccination is counted 14 days after that: optimistically on January 18. CDC's latest vaccination count was 66.2 million fully vaccinated as of April 8 (80 days later). Worldometers says we had 24,717,673 cases on January 18 and 31,720,703 cases on April 8, out of a population of 332,532,050.

      CDC also says that the number of vaccinations has been increasing at roughly a linear rate. Assuming it is

      • Yes and no. For some reason (probably a mix of bureaucratic CYA and residual politics from last year), natural immunity after infection does not appear to exist in the eyes of the US medical establishment, nor do individuals who had covid but did not receive a covid test result. Including those people (recovered but not vaccinated and the fraction not counted in official cases) skews the denominator.

        It makes the natural infection rate appear lower (and making vaccines look worse) by raising the denominator

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      To estimate the number of unvaccinated cases you can simply use the *all* new cases, since the 5800 vaccinated cases represent only 0.1% of all new cases since the end of January.

      Let's try to get a *lower bound* on the probability of being infected if you were not vaccinated. For that we will somewhat overestimate the size of the susceptible group by including everyone who did not have natural immunity at the start of our vaccination program. That means we'll lump fully and partially vaccinated people into

    • People who took the trouble to get a vaccine are less likely to put themselves at high risk of infection post-vaccination. Stats comparing infection rates of them with wild CV-denying types immersing in large crowds won't tell the full story.

    • This statistic looks encouraging, but is not really useful without knowing the rate of unvaccinated people who dodged COVID during the same time period. I'm guessing that is pretty high, as well.

      Agreed. Its very difficult to improve on the robustness of the double-blind controlled phase III trial. This result is likely due to study design choices, and doesn't reflect an improvement in the vaccines' efficacy. It's just making news because the result is a very large number.

  • The state of reporting on this pandemic. It's true, after all. Less then 10% of fully vaccinated people get COVID-19.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by RoccamOccam ( 953524 )

      “COVID? Gangbusters with ratings,” CNN Director Charlie Chester told a journalist in a secretly recorded video.

      “Which is why we constantly have the death toll on the side,” he continued. “It would make our point better if [the COVID death toll] was higher.”

      “Like, this special red phone rings and they pick it up and it’s, like, the head of the network being like, ‘There’s nothing that you’re doing right now that makes me want to stick. Put

  • Dodging COVID is not enough. (Score:5, Funny)

    by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @09:20AM (#61280068)
    You need all 5 D's: dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.
    • If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge COVID?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      for those that weren't clear, the *first* dodge in the list is moving out of the path of an incoming object, while the second refers to hiding in the trunk of a chrysler product . . .

      hawk

  • Slashot Poster (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't like thing! Therefore, it's a conspiracy ;_;
  • I'd have to think that most of those who were among the first to be vaccinated were likely hyper-vigilant about the virus and intend to remain so while the majority of others are still un-vaccinated. While most of the people who weren't among the first to be vaccinated likely only got the vaccine relatively recently and thus haven't had much of a chance to catch the virus post-vaccination. On it's face the number seems very encouraging but without other such instances to compare it too directly (people are

  • 100% (Score:5, Informative)

    by enriquevagu ( 1026480 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @09:50AM (#61280172)

    99.992% of fully vaccinated people have dodged covid, and 100% have dodged covid death.

    Go and get your shot.

    • Go and get your shot.

      Most of the world is waiting for a shot to be available.
      Even in rich countries, it's mostly old people who are vaccinated. Some countries are ahead (Israel, and to a lesser extent the UK and the USA), some are behind (Japan, Australia) and it's not because people do not trust vaccines.

      • Japan is not just behind in vaccinating the populace, but woefully behind. That's why there are protests about the Olympics going ahead. With ~1% vaccinated, it's pretty much the same as not having a vaccine at all.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by crow ( 16139 )

        At the present rate of vaccinations, the USA will have more supply than demand in mid to late May. That's when we'll really start worrying about people choosing to not get vaccinated.

        • Yup, and that's probably when the USA will start exporting as well. These plants are not going to shutdown any time soon.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by crow ( 16139 )

            That's likely. I'm also expecting that's when we'll start seeing lots of advertisements for getting vaccinated.

      • Vaccine sites here have more vaccines available than appointments, especially out of the cities in Trump country. My wife and I received our first shots last week and they don’t ask if you’re in the right group or not. They just want as many folks as possible.

        • Vaccine sites here have more vaccines available than appointments, especially out of the cities in Trump country. My wife and I received our first shots last week and they don’t ask if you’re in the right group or not. They just want as many folks as possible.

          Yeah I got mine from a first come first serve community site here and am now fully vaxxed, 3 weeks outside the second dose

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      99.992% of fully vaccinated people have dodged covid, and 100% have dodged covid death.

      Go and get your shot.

      Actually no, people did die.
      (from memory) In that group of 5,800 people, about 400 were hospitalized, and of them about 77 died.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ehiris ( 214677 )

      about 50 died. So that's still 1% death rate for those infected.

    • >"Go and get your shot."

      Please, don't get shot.

      Get vaccinated with an injection from a syringe :)

  • Well I am glad they finally managed to measure something accurately, anything measured to that many digits must be correct.
    They can't seem to accurately detect COVID, but they sure can measure how effective the vaccine is.
  • A large percentage of people already had the illness before they were vaccinated.

  • While the data is encouraging, I will be interested in:
    -Breakdown by time after receiving shot
    -Breakdown by vaccine type (along with percentage of overall recipients)
    -Breakdown by age (also with general info about general age of recipients. More may be older, but so too more older have received than younger)

    If breakthrough infection rate confirms the preliminary efficacy difference for J&J vs. the mRNA, then the figures moving forward will be even more encouraging.

    • While the data is encouraging, I will be interested in: -Breakdown by time after receiving shot -Breakdown by vaccine type (along with percentage of overall recipients) -Breakdown by age (also with general info about general age of recipients. More may be older, but so too more older have received than younger)

      If breakthrough infection rate confirms the preliminary efficacy difference for J&J vs. the mRNA, then the figures moving forward will be even more encouraging.

      Just FYI j&j is an mRNA vaccine, the difference is a natural vs synthetic delivery system

  • I.E.: if the vaccine is generally available (or arguably 1 month from being generally available), then all other COVID measures are unnecessary.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hipp5 ( 1635263 )

      I.E.: if the vaccine is generally available (or arguably 1 month from being generally available), then all other COVID measures are unnecessary.

      Hopefully soon, but not quite yet. You still need a critical mass of vaccinations to build up enough herd immunity that outbreaks will no longer occur. Also, it takes awhile for your body to respond to the vaccine and build up the appropriate defences. So it does seem we're finally tracking towards a lifting of restrictions, but are not quite there yet.

      • Why do we need herd immunity? If the vaccine is generally available, then those with health concerns can take it, and who cares if we have a disease that was already 99.5% survivable that would now be something like 99.995% survivable out there in the wild?

        • Because the more the virus festers among the dimwitted the more likely dangerous mutations are. Even a sub-mongoloid dingus with an IQ of 87 who believes the virus will genetically modify or sterilize them is smart enough to breed a variant of Coronavirus with a slightly different spike protein and a 10% worse death rate.

          Believe me, if it weren't for that I would 100% be for encouraging people afraid of the virus not to take it because fuck them.

          • ^afraid of the vaccine, of course.. Good thing Slashdot has been around since I was fucking 21 or so but still has no edit function.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • The young are already practically immune to this virus. Having them take the vaccine to further boost their immunity is, frankly, ridiculous. Mutations are also likely to decrease the deadliness of the disease, which is already absurdly low for most of the general population.

  • Stanford did a study of our county to find out how many people had been infected. Turns out they found that three times as many people had been infected as the official figures counted. Probably due to asymptomatic infections and/or people with mild infections who just didn't bother to get tested.
    “We are unlikely to be able to control this infection by allowing it to just run through the population,” Dr. Parsonnet said.
    Also noteworthy, those fully vaccinated had double the level of antibodies co

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