By now we've all heard about breakthrough Covid cases--fully vaccinated people who still end up testing positive for Covid. The oft-repeated line is that such cases are rare, and that even if vaccinated people do catch Covid, they are likely to have only mild symptoms.The question is, how rare is rare?
I've now come across some actual data, from Oklahoma and the District of Columbia, the two US state-level entities that publish detailed information about overall case rates and case rates among vaccinated citizens.
Here's the lowdown:
In Oklahoma to date, 506,020 people out of a population of 3,956,971 have tested positive for covid. That's 12.8 percent of the population.
Of those 3,956,971 Oklahomans, 1,979,236 are fully vaccinated, either with the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine--almost exactly 50 percent. Of those nearly two million vaccinated citizens, just 2,514 have suffered a breakthrough Covid infection. That's just 0.127 percent of the vaccinated group.
So, if we compare an unvaccinated case rate of 12.8 percent with a vaccinated case rate of 0.127 percent, it looks as though unvaccinated Oklahomans are 100 times as likely to come down with Covid as their vaccinated peers.
Let's see how the stats for DC compare:
DC has a population of 705,749. Of these, to date, 52,005 have tested positive for Covid, for an overall case rate of 7.37 percent.
Among the DC population, 299,020--42 percent--are fully vaccinated, again with one of the same three vaccines. Among that group there have been 546 breakthrough cases; a vaccinated case rate of 0.183 percent.
Comparing 7.37 percent to 0.183 percent , it looks as though unvaccinated residents of DC are 40 times more likely to get Covid than their vaccinated neighbors.
As reported by Nicoletta Lanese of LiveScience.com here, the three vaccines vary consistently in their effectiveness. Here's a breakdown of the breakthrough percentages:
...................................Oklahoma______DC
Moderna......................0.12...................0.13
Pfizer...........................0.17....................0.20
J & J............................0.21...................0.32
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