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Cases of COVID-19 among fully vaccinated Alaskans are increasing, and the delta variant is just one reason. It’s a complicated set of facts that public health officials must explain without detracting from their main message – that the vaccine is their best tool in curbing the pandemic and still offers excellent protection.
Alaska recorded 17 deaths from COVID in July. Four of these people were fully vaccinated. Among the COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization in July, 19% of patients were vaccinated.
At a steady pace, it takes state epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin about 20 minutes to discuss a recent state report that describes cases of infection in Alaska and why they are on the rise.
One of the factors is that an individual’s immune response to the vaccine weakens over time. This is the reason why the vaccine boosters are likely to arrive this fall. It has been months since many Alaskans got vaccinated, and now their waning immunity is faced with the delta variant of the virus.
“For people who were vaccinated more than 150 days ago, the vaccine’s effectiveness is about 73% against SARS CoV-2 infection,” McLaughlin said, using the virus’s official name. . “If you just look at the delta variant, then (the effectiveness of the vaccine) drops to around 66%.”
Another factor is not a limitation of the vaccine but a math problem: month after month, more and more Alaskans are fully vaccinated. As the vaccinated population increases, the possibility of more vaccinated people becoming infected also increases.
State data shows that nearly 30% of new COVID-19 cases in July were in people who had been vaccinated. But McLaughlin suspects a difference in who gets tested. Perhaps people who have been vaccinated are more likely to request the swab, he said, than people who have not been vaccinated.
“If this is true, then what you’re going to see is that a higher proportion of cases reported to the health department will belong to this fully vaccinated group because they are more likely to be tested,” said McLaughlin. “If you don’t take a test, you won’t find it and you won’t report it to the health department.”
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The voluntary nature of testing might highlight breakthrough cases, but the growth in breakthroughs is real.
“The good news, however, is that the vaccine’s effectiveness in preventing hospitalization is still very robust, probably in the 90 percent range and above,” McLaughlin said. “And then the vaccine’s effectiveness against death from COVID-19 disease is even higher, probably in the mid to high percentage range of 90.”
Anchor economist Jonathan King, who writes a newsletter on the state of the pandemic, said the evolving nature of the virus and science makes a public health message tricky.
“There is already a strong movement against vaccines, so it’s harder to sell the story that vaccines work. What they are, ”he said. “It’s a difficult thing to try to both convince people of something and change the story of that thing at the same time.”
Alaska Chief Medical Officer Dr Anne Zink used the power of illustration to make the case at a recent public briefing. Zink works shifts in the emergency department of the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. It is not uncommon, she says, for a couple to arrive in the emergency room with an unvaccinated spouse who is very ill and has difficulty breathing. The other spouse is vaccinated and is doing well.
“It’s just striking,” Zink said, “So even though (the vaccine) isn’t perfect – we are seeing vaccine breakthroughs, we are seeing vaccine-related hospitalizations, we are seeing deaths – it does. always an incredible job to moderate this wave, by minimizing the wave on the sick, hospitalized and dying people.
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