CDC ramps up scrutiny of rare post-vaccination ‘breakthrough infections’ - The Washington Post

As tens of millions of people in the United States reach the coronavirus vaccination finish line, a small fraction have had “breakthrough infections,” testing positive for the virus after being inoculated and in rare cases requiring hospitalization, according to data from state health departments.

These cases represent a tiny percentage of the 66 million people fully inoculated, and experts say they are neither unexpected nor occurring at an alarming rate.

Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser for the pandemic, said at a White House news briefing Friday when asked about the breakthrough cases.

The administration, state health officials and front-line health-care workers face challenges in trying to get a clear picture of these outlier cases: The data is incomplete.

The several deaths reported so far among people already fully vaccinated were among elderly individuals who may have had underlying health conditions and may not have mounted a strong immune response when vaccinated, he said.

Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said of the breakthrough infections.

He said he fears that people opposed to vaccines will exploit the breakthrough infections to argue the vaccines don’t work.

In Washington state, officials have identified 102 breakthrough cases among more than 1 million people vaccinated between February and March 20, a markedly small percentage, said Umair Shah, the state health secretary.

“Look, we have been vaccinating over 1 million people, and we know vaccines aren’t 100 percent, and it’s not surprising you would get breakthrough infections,” Shah said.

Maine has fully vaccinated 340,301 people, and 62 cases of breakthrough infections have been reported, including one person in hospice care who died, said Nirav D.

In South Carolina, state officials had fully vaccinated more than 560,000 people and reported 141 breakthrough infections as of April 5.

In Nevada, 58 cases have been reported in the more than half-million fully vaccinated people, according to health department data.

Oregon health authorities had identified 168 cases through April 2, including three deaths, among more than 700,000 vaccinated people.

Many had asymptomatic infections; 19 were hospitalized, and most were in people older than 65 or with underlying health conditions.

Michigan reported this week that, since vaccinations began, 246 fully vaccinated people tested positive for the coronavirus and three died.

Those Michigan cases were among 1.7 million people vaccinated.

Beaumont Health, which runs eight hospitals in the Detroit area, is tracking 161,000 vaccinated patients and trying to discern how many have had breakthrough infections.

Nicholas Gilpin, system medical director for infection prevention at Beaumont, said it has been difficult to obtain genetic sequencing of the virus samples from the breakthrough cases.