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Just under 100 Idaho residents vaccinated against COVID-19 have since tested positive for the virus.
The state Department of Health and Welfare said on Tuesday that 97 vaccinated residents had tested positive since receiving their doses and boosters. Of the nearly 274,000 Idaho residents who have been fully vaccinated, the 97 cases represent just over three-hundredths of 1 percent of the population.
“No vaccine is 100 percent,” said state epidemiologist Dr Christine Hahn. “We have seen people get vaccinated and receive COVID.”
Of those cases – called “breakthrough cases” by the Centers for Disease Control – the department reports that about half had no symptoms, the other half reporting mild to moderate symptoms.
Three were hospitalized and all three suffered from pre-existing conditions that made them more vulnerable to serious illness. None are dead.
“There are two things we’re looking for,” Hahn said. “A sharp decrease in the number of people receiving COVID (after being vaccinated), which we believe has happened, but it’s not much. Second, they would be less seriously ill. Among the cases, we want to see people who can be diagnosed… a lot of them are asymptomatic. “
Of the 97 cases, 51 had received doses of the Pfizer vaccine, while the rest had received Moderna.
The announcement comes amid a wave of state agencies across the country acknowledging similar outliers since Friday. The CDC is gathering data on revolutionary cases in America, which Gov. Brad Little said should not impact Idaho’s progress in vaccinating the population against herd immunity.
“The only thing that really concerns us are the variations and the ebb and flow of (the) increasing rate of infection in the states,” Little said on a separate conference call Tuesday. “But if you look at a map of the United States, it happens in many states. I feel pretty good where we are. I would feel a lot better if we had 70 or 80 percent of our population immunized. But we have a plan to make it happen.
This threshold of 70 to 80% is far from being reached. Of Idaho’s 1.8 million people, 273,535 have been fully immunized, which is just over 15 percent of the population. The slowdown in dosing led Little to open vaccines to all Idahoans 16 and older on April 5. Panhandle Health opened all residents of Northern Idaho 16 years and older to vaccine eligibility on March 24.
Dave Jeppesen, director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, said Tuesday that 100,000 people are currently on the state’s waiting list, with about half already having scheduled appointments and the other half awaiting their particular eligibility.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Idaho’s overall positivity rate was slightly above the benchmark target of 5%. Incident rates in five counties – all in eastern Idaho, where epidemics have increased – have approached or exceeded 25%. But in Kootenai County, one of Panhandle Health’s five counties has opened up to full vaccinations, the positivity rate has fallen to 3.5%, according to Idaho Health and Welfare.
Few have expressed pride in how Idahoans have weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, marking just over a year since his first orders to stay at home on March 25.
“I’m trying to get back to where we were a year ago,” he said. “I remember a lot of what we talked about a year ago is, ‘We don’t know what we don’t know’. There are a lot of things we know, but there are still things we don’t know.
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