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Raleigh, North Carolina – Almost a fifth of coronavirus infections reported in North Carolina during the first half of August were in people already fully vaccinated, according to the State Department of Health and Human Services.
A weekly DHHS report released last Thursday indicates that 18% of the virus cases reported in the weeks ending August 7 and 14 were so-called “revolutionary” cases. The report does not include any raw figures except to note that 22,555 vaccinated North Carolina residents have tested positive for the coronavirus since January 1.
A bar graph in the report clearly shows a dramatic increase in breakthrough infections since early July, but it is impossible to determine the size of the increase without the underlying numbers.
But the 22,555 cases of rupture this year represent just 4% of the state’s total caseload since early January. DHHS spokeswoman Bailey Pennington also said in a recent email to WRAL News that only 12% of cases between May 6 – when half of the state’s adults had received at least one dose of the vaccine – and August 13 concerned people who were fully vaccinated.
“While we continue to see stable and highly effective protection against hospitalizations and severe outcomes for fully vaccinated individuals, we are seeing a decrease in vaccine effectiveness against Delta variant infection,” the report states. DHHS.
“The vaccine is not a force field,” agrees Dr. David Wohl, an infectious disease expert at UNC Health, adding that it decreases symptoms for anyone who contracts COVID-19.
“Vaccination protects people against infection in the first up, “Wohl said Tuesday.” Iif they are infected, it gets it out of their system faster than not vaccinated people, so therefore, they don’t get so sick. “
The DHHS report states that unvaccinated individuals were 3.5 times more likely to contract COVID-19 and 4.6 times more likely to die from the disease than vaccinated individuals.
“Vaccinated people are like A students getting rid of the virus,” Wohl said. “Their immune systems have been trained and prepared to do this. They are armed and ready.”
Between January 1 and August 14, 109 North Carolinians who were vaccinated died from COVID-19, accounting for just over 1% of all virus-related deaths in the state during that time period. Focusing on the period from May 6 to August 5, 11% of virus-related deaths occurred in vaccinated patients, Pennington said in his email.
Overall, North Carolina records an average of 37 deaths per day from the virus. In addition, more than 3,300 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide on Tuesday, the highest total in seven months.
As of August 5, a total of 523 vaccinated people had been hospitalized with COVID-19, Pennington said in his email. No updated figures were available on Tuesday.
Fifty-nine percent of people aged 18 or older in North Carolina are fully vaccinated, while 5 percent have received a dose of the vaccine, according to DHHS data.
Despite receiving the Pfizer vaccine in January, Lindsey Patterson is currently on her sixth day of battling the virus.
“It was a really big wake-up call for me,” she said.
Patterson said she believed she was infected with the virus during a housewarming party she attended.
“When you’re with your friends and you’re like ‘Yeah, we’re safe.’ You slack off with those kind of limits, “she said.” You still have to be careful [and] we must always be aware of our surroundings. “
Without vaccines, Wohl said he thought the condition would be in worse shape post, but given the state’s low vaccination rate, he calls the latest wave a crisis.
“I’m really, unfortunately, pessimistic for the next couple of months, and I think we’re going to have a lot of problems, and I think we’re going to see a lot of people die,” he said. “We are here now – a place of surge, pain, chaos – because we have so many people who are not vaccinated. If we does not have have so many people not vaccinated, our ICU would not to be full.”
In addition to getting the vaccine, he also urges people to wear masks indoors again, not only to protect themselves but also for others, especially children under the age of 12 who cannot be vaccinated. .
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