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Despite the power of Covid-19 vaccines to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death from the disease, fully vaccinated people can get very sick and die from the virus in rare cases. These people tend to be over 65 or have weakened immune systems or other serious health problems, an NBC News survey of health officials nationwide found.
“Throughout the pandemic, people who died from Covid-19 were more likely to be older, and this continues to be true with breakthrough cases,” a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health said in an email.
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In Oregon, about 10 percent of major infections reported to the state were in people living in nursing homes or collective care facilities, and the majority of deaths were in the elderly.
According to the Minnesota Department of Health, the median age of rupture cases that resulted in hospitalization is 74 years old.
This is the same population that is most vulnerable to the most serious consequences of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.
This is a trend that has been observed outside of the United States as well.
Dr Tal Brosh, who heads the infectious diseases unit at Assuta Ashdod University Hospital in Israel, noted that breakthrough infections tend to be more severe in people with underlying conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and kidney disease.
“If you are vaccinated and have a lot of comorbidities or are immunocompromised, you are not as well protected as someone else who is vaccinated,” Brosh said.
Immunocompromised patients may include people who were already taking medicines to suppress their immune system following an organ transplant or a cancer diagnosis.
Such breakthrough infections don’t mean vaccines don’t work. No vaccine is 100 percent effective against infection.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initially tracked all breakthrough infections, as of May 1, the agency switched to only tracking those related to hospitalization or death. By this point, his count had passed 10,000.
But NBC News found that many states continued to track all breakthrough infections, with 27 states reporting more than 65,000 cases in total.
This is still only a tiny fraction of the more than 160 million fully vaccinated people in the United States. said in a briefing with the Infectious Diseases Society of America last week. “Even with infection, it reduces the risk of hospitalization.”
Yet breakthrough infections can lead to serious illness, hospitalization, and even death, especially in those most vulnerable.
As of July 12, the CDC has reported nearly 5,500 cases in which a person fully vaccinated with Covid-19 has been hospitalized or has died. Seventy-five percent of these patients were over 65 years of age.
But a decisive case did not necessarily cause hospitalization or death. Many breakthrough infections are asymptomatic and are discovered by chance or during routine tests in patients who arrive at the hospital for other reasons, such as heart problems or other medical conditions.
In fact, in 1,456, or 28%, of hospitalizations followed by the CDC, the breakthrough cases were either asymptomatic or did not play a role in why the patient was hospitalized. Take, for example, an older man who goes to the hospital for a heart attack. He tested positive for Covid-19 but without any symptoms. He still needs to be hospitalized to receive treatment for the heart attack.
This may also be true for deaths in people with breakthrough infections.
In Delaware, a spokesperson for the state’s Public Health Division said that just because residents have died with a diagnosis of Covid-19 “does not mean that Covid was the cause of death.”
Similar observations were made in Colorado.
“Someone may have died or hospitalized for another cause, but tested positive for Covid-19,” the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in an email.
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Tracking and analyzing breakthrough infections is important so that public health officials have a good understanding of how vaccines work – or not.
“We don’t see any evidence at this time that immunity wanes in people who were vaccinated last December or January and are at higher risk of breakthrough infections,” CDC Butler said.
But those who remain vulnerable even after vaccination may need to continue with masks and social distancing for now, Brosh said.
“As long as we don’t control transmission in the community very well, they shouldn’t consider themselves very protected,” Brosh said.
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Judy Silverman contributed.
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