Minnesota Department of Health Provides Data on Vaccine Breakthrough Cases

MINNESOTA (Valley News Live) – The Minnesota Department of Health adds data on COVID-19 vaccine advances to its website: COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Weekly Update.

COVID-19 vaccines are effective. However, a small percentage of people who are fully vaccinated will still get COVID-19 if exposed to the virus that causes it. It is normal with any vaccine for a percentage of those vaccinated to still get sick. These are called “vaccine breakthroughs”. A COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough case is when a person tests positive 14 days or more after their last dose of vaccine, and the person has not already tested positive for COVID-19.

The Department of Health is actively monitoring and tracking breakthrough cases of the COVID-19 vaccine to better understand what is happening in Minnesota.

Vaccination can make the illness less serious in people who get vaccinated but still get sick. Despite this, some people who are fully vaccinated will still be hospitalized and die. However, people who are fully vaccinated are much less likely to be hospitalized or die than people with similar risk factors who are not vaccinated.

As the data on the new webpage shows, breakthrough cases of the COVID-19 vaccine have been rare. Less than 0.2% of people who were fully vaccinated, or 14 days after their last dose, were subsequently infected with the virus. In other words, 99.8% of people who are fully vaccinated have not contracted COVID-19. COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths among fully vaccinated people are even less common, with 0.02% of fully vaccinated people hospitalized and 0.002% of them dying from COVID-19.

Vaccination remains the best preventive measure against COVID-19. We encourage all eligible people to get vaccinated as soon as they can.

Vaccine Data Dashboard Updates

A few updates are underway on the COVID-19 vaccine data dashboard today. The updates are:

• Added CDC data for Minnesotans aged 18 and over who have received at least one dose of vaccine and have completed the series of vaccines. This will be a sundial added on the “Summary” tab.
• Removal of the percentage of doses administered by providers, 7-day target. This information was reflected on the “Summary” tab, the “Vaccines administered” tab and on the “Supplier objectives” tab. This was important at the start of vaccine deployment when the vaccine supply was well below demand. There is now an adequate supply of vaccines, so this measure is no longer necessary.
• Added a graph showing second dose completion data in the “Vaccines Administered” tab.

The updates will help Minnesotans continue to track the progress of COVID-19 vaccination statewide.

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