they are keeping the most detailed data, the Times says. It is not certain whether the trends in these states would hold across the country.
The increases seen are largely due to the mathematics of mass vaccination: Scientists have always expected that as the number of vaccinated people exponentially grows, vaccinated people will show up more frequently than before in tallies of the severely ill and dead.
“We don’t want to dilute the message that the vaccine is tremendously successful and protective, more so than we ever hoped initially,” Dr. Scott Dryden-Peterson, an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston says. “The fact that we’re seeing breakthrough cases and breakthrough hospitalizations and deaths doesn’t diminish that it still saves many people’s lives.”
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had no comment on the states’ numbers, but the agency is expected to discuss breakthrough infections, hospitalizations and vaccine efficacy during a news briefing on Wednesday, the Times reported.
The states’ data do confirm that vaccinated people are still far less likely to become severely ill or to die from COVID-19. In California, the 1,615 hospitalizations of people with breakthrough infections as of Aug. 8 represents just 0.007% of nearly 22 million fully immunized residents, and breakthrough deaths constitute an even smaller portion, the Times reports.
But in six of the states, breakthrough infections accounted for 18% to 28% of recorded cases in recent weeks, the newspaper says. These numbers are likely to be low because most fully immunized people may not feel ill enough to seek a test.
Breakthrough infections accounted for 12% to 24% of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the states, the Times found. The number of deaths was too small to arrive at a solid number, although it does appear to be higher than the CDC estimate of 0.5%.
The latest numbers make a good case for booster shots, and a recent survey showed that seniors can’t wait to get one: Among vaccinated Americans, 72 percent of those who are 65 or older already say they want a booster shot.
Learn more about booster shots here.