U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) The reporting of mild and asymptomatic “breakthrough” cases of COVID-19 in people who have not been vaccinated has stopped, leading many people to ask why.
On May 1, the CDC announced that it would “shift from monitoring all reported vaccine breakthrough cases to focusing on identifying and investigating hospitalizations or deaths due to any reason.”
The CDC wrote: “This shift will help maximize the quality of data collected on the most important clinical and public health cases.”
In other words, the CDC decided to focus only on the most severe cases. They implied that this focus will provide health researchers and officials with important information about the populations hardest hit by the ongoing pandemic.
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On July 27, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky defended her agency against criticism that it no longer provided sufficient public information about breakthrough infections. She said that the CDC will soon release data on “tens of thousands” of people who have been infected after being vaccinated.
“In the next few days, you will actually see published information about the science that inspired this change,” Varensky told CNN.
She added: “We are definitely studying and evaluating breakthrough infections in many different locations across the country and in many different populations.” “We check these data weekly or biweekly, and we will report them soon.”
However, the CDC’s decision to stop reporting such data was made two months before the Delta variant began to erupt in more unvaccinated people.
The most famous outbreak occurred on the weekend of July 4 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Of the 469 cases initially reported in the outbreak, nearly 351 occurred in vaccinated people.
At the end of July, the CDC advised people Start wearing masks again in indoor spacesAt about the same time, an internal CDC report showed that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people Also capable of spreading COVID-19 Delta variants give others.
The CDC’s decision to stop tracking mild and asymptomatic breakthrough cases has influenced some states to follow suit. According to state officials investigated by Politico, eight states, including Ohio, Texas, and South Carolina, only began collecting data on severe cases thereafter. The other 30 states are still collecting information on all breakthrough infections.
The lack of CDC data, coupled with the reduction in COVID-19 testing for vaccinated people, prevents health officials and the public from fully understanding how the coronavirus continues to affect vaccinated people.
On July 22nd, Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote a letter urging the CDC to resume data collection on all COVID-19 cases.
These data can allow people to understand the infectivity of the vaccinated individual, how effective the vaccine is on the mutation, how effective the vaccine is within a few months, and whether the person vaccinated has experienced it The long-term effects of COVID-19, He wrote. The data can also help legislators and health officials determine the best way to prevent vaccinated people from triggering an outbreak.
The CDC emphasized that breakthrough cases are very rare. CDC internal documents are provided by Washington post An estimated 35,000 vaccinated Americans have experienced symptomatic breakthrough infections. Considering that more than 162 million Americans are fully vaccinated, this means that only 0.02% of all vaccinated people are infected with symptomatic COVID-19 cases every week.
According to the Associated Press, in contrast, CDC data in June showed that 90% of recent COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths in the United States occurred in unvaccinated people.
The CDC continues to urge people to get vaccinated, emphasizing how the vaccine can reduce the severity of symptoms and the likelihood of hospitalization and death. However, since there are no specific figures showing that vaccinated people are rarely infected, one may doubt the vaccine and its effectiveness against the ongoing pandemic.
Weekly newspaper Contacted the CDC for comments.
