Every Picture Tells a Story: Breakthrough COVID Infections Among the Vaccinated

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Why is so much attention being given to those who refused to get vaccinated? Why would someone trade the safe harbor of vaccination for the risk of death from COVID-19 and its variants in the tradeoff calculus?

The CDC is not capturing data on breakthrough COVID-19 infections – infections in those who have been vaccinated. The Kaiser Family Foundation has stepped into the breach to gather state-reported data. Half of the states are reporting breakthrough “events” – cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Fifteen provide regular updates. Here is the best data we have, at the moment, to answer the question, 

Are the COVID-19 vaccinations effective?

  • Hospitalizations among the vaccinated range from 0% in California to 0.06% in Arkansas.
  • Deaths among the fully vaccinated in all but two states are 0.00%. Arkansas and Michigan reported the highest death rates, 0.01%. For a comparison, deaths attributed to the roughly 900,000 coronary angioplasty procedures done annually in the US is 1.27%
  • KFF did apply a bit of chart magic when they put the maximum value at 5% - it compresses the data visually to the left. But even if they set the maximum at 1%, the values all cluster near 0%
  • Texas and Florida are not reporting their statistics; perhaps they are too busy carrying for the hospitalized and dying without vaccination.

Enough said.