I do not know where the term “breakthrough” cases comes from, but it is probably a way of putting on a glaze over deaths and adverse effects, post-vaccine. Like the eight people in Maine, USA, fully vaccinated, but now fully dead. What happens to families when the breadwinner kicks the bucket, or now, syringe?
“Eight people in Maine have died with COVID after being fully vaccinated, according to the latest numbers from Maine’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which confirmed a total of 457 breakthrough cases in the state.
Initial data suggest breakthrough cases in Maine are more common in older individuals and people with underlying health conditions — the same populations that, among the unvaccinated, are most at risk of hospitalization or death from the virus.
About half of the vaccinated people in Maine who tested positive for COVID had not experienced symptoms when contacted by case investigators, according to the Maine CDC.
In Maine and other states, anyone who tests positive for SARS-Cov-2 two weeks after receiving the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot or completing the two-dose Moderna or Pfizer vaccination is recorded as a breakthrough case.
The daughter of one Maine woman who died from the virus despite being vaccinated said she wishes there was more information available about breakthrough cases. If she had known more, she said, she would have taken more precautions despite her mother’s vaccination status and been more insistent that she seek testing and treatment when she first had symptoms.
On June 3, Napa County California announced a fully vaccinated woman, who was more than a month past her second Moderna shot, died after being hospitalized with COVID. The 65-year-old woman had underlying conditions and tested positive for the Alpha variant, The New York Times reported.
“I’m very sad that she had a sufficiently severe illness that it actually led to her death,” said Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University. But “we expected to have the occasional breakthrough infection,” he said.
As of June 9, there had been more than 5,723 breakthrough COVID cases identified in California, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).
Of the 5,723 cases, at least 417 people were hospitalized and least 47 died. Approximately 48% of cases were missing hospitalization data. It is not known if the primary cause of hospitalization or death was COVID or if there were other causes.
There is little data about COVID vaccines’ effectiveness in people with underlying health problems, especially immune impairment, because they weren’t included in the vaccines’ initial trials, CDPH said. But there is growing evidence people who are immunocompromised may not mount a strong response to the vaccine.
As The Defender reported last month, emerging research shows 15% to 80% of people with certain medical conditions aren’t generating many antibodies, if any, after receiving a COVID vaccine.
According to NBC News, people taking medications that suppress their immune system, those on medication for inflammatory disorders and those with blood cancers showed a significantly weaker antibody response to the vaccine.
An organ transplant study published in JAMA found 46% of 658 transplant patients did not mount an antibody response after two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. Researchers think the lack of reaction is probably a result of taking a class of immunosuppressive drugs, called antimetabolites.
Other states continue to report breakthrough cases, among them Texas, which recorded more than 768 breakthrough COVID cases through June 1, with 8% (61 cases) resulting in death.
In Washington, the state’s Department of Health reported 1,837 cases of breakthrough infection through June 9. Of those, 10% resulted in hospitalization and 31 people died from COVID-related illness. The majority of cases occurred in the 35 to 49 age group.
CDC stops counting breakthrough cases unless they result in hospitalization or death
The CDC says it is working with state and local health departments to investigate COVID vaccine breakthrough cases — yet unlike state health departments, as of May 1, the agency said it is tracking only those breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization or death.
The CDC said it made the change in how it counts breakthrough cases to “maximize the quality of the data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health importance.”
But according to Dr. Robert H. Shmerling, senior faculty editor of Harvard Health Publishing, there could be other reasons for the CDC’s decision. “First, there’s the challenge of messaging around encouraging people to get vaccinated,” Shmerling wrote. “Focusing on breakthrough cases may send a misleading impression that the vaccines aren’t effective. This might complicate efforts to battle vaccine hesitancy.”
The change in breakthrough reporting results in a lower overall number of reports of breakthrough cases in the U.S.
According to CDC data, a total of 10,262 SARS-CoV-2 vaccine breakthrough infections had been reported from 46 U.S. states and territories as of April 30, including 995 hospitalizations and 160 deaths.
The CDC’s website states actual vaccine breakthrough numbers are likely substantially higher as the surveillance system is passive and relies on voluntary reporting from state health departments and may not be complete. In addition, some breakthrough cases will not be identified due to lack of testing. This is particularly true in instances of asymptomatic or mild illness.
As of June 7, the CDC received 3,459 reports from 47 U.S. states and territories of COVID vaccine breakthrough infection that resulted in hospitalization or death. Of the 3,459 reports, 1,691 (49%) occurred in females, 2, 642 (76%) occurred in people 65 or older, 3,275 (95%) resulted in hospitalization and 603 (17%) died.
As with previous reporting, the CDC said reported breakthrough infection was likely an undercount of all SARS-CoV-2 infections among fully vaccinated persons and was a snapshot that could be used to help identify patterns and look for signals among vaccine breakthrough cases.
People who get COVID have long-lasting natural immunity
As The Defender reported, a new preprint study by the Cleveland Clinic found people previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 were less likely to be reinfected than fully vaccinated individuals who never had the virus — suggesting the vaccine is of no benefit to people who already had COVID.
The study, available on medRxiv, provides insight into how the immune system protects the body once a COVID infection is confirmed.
The clinic studied 52,238 employees. Of those, 49,659 never had the virus and 2,579 had COVID and recovered. Of the 2,579 who previously were infected, 1,359, or 53%, remained unvaccinated, compared with 41%, or 22,777 who were vaccinated.
Of all infections during the study period, 99.3% occurred in participants who were not infected previously and remained unvaccinated. In contrast, 0.7% of infections occurred in participants who were not previously infected but were currently vaccinated. Significantly, not one of the 1,359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study.
To better understand immune memory of SARS-CoV-2, researchers led by Drs. Daniela Weiskopf, Alessandro Sette and Shane Crotty from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology analyzed immune cells and antibodies from nearly 200 people who had been exposed to COVID and recovered, The Defender reported.
The results, published in Science, showed the immune systems of more than 95% of people who recovered from COVID had durable memories of the virus up to eight months after infection. Previous studies showed that natural infection induced a strong response, but this study showed that response lasted, Weiskoph said.
Another study in Nature assessed the lasting immunogenic effect of T-cell reactivity to SARS and SARS-2. Data showed that natural immunity was very robust — and likely more robust than any immunity derived from a vaccine.
The Defender previously reported on breakthrough cases in Washington, Florida, South Carolina, Texas, New York, California, Minnesota and the Island of Seychelles, which has fully vaccinated more of its population against COVID than any other country in the world.”
In other blood clot news:
“The Italian government said on Friday it was restricting the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to people over the age of 60, after a teenager who had taken the shot died from a blood clot.
Camilla Canepa died on Thursday aged 18 after being given the vaccine on May 25, triggering a storm of controversy in Italy over the Anglo-Swedish brand being given to adults of all ages despite previously-raised medical concerns.
“AstraZeneca will only be used for people over 60,” the country’s special COVID commissioner Francesco Figliuolo told reporters at a news conference.
Novavax Says COVID-19 Vaccine Shows 90.4% Overall Efficacy in U.S./Mexico Phase 3 Trial
The American biotechnology company Novavax announced on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine candidate was found to have an overall efficacy of 90.4% in a Phase 3 trial conducted across the United States and Mexico.
Additional analyses of the trial are ongoing, according to the company, and will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication.
8 Fully Vaccinated Die of COVID in Maine, as States Continue to Report ‘Breakthrough’ Cases
Eight people in Maine have died with COVID after being fully vaccinated, according to the latest numbers from Maine’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which confirmed a total of 457 breakthrough cases in the state.
Initial data suggest breakthrough cases in Maine are more common in older individuals and people with underlying health conditions — the same populations that, among the unvaccinated, are most at risk of hospitalization or death from the virus.
About half of the vaccinated people in Maine who tested positive for COVID had not experienced symptoms when contacted by case investigators, according to the Maine CDC.
Fauci in 2012 Video: Gain-of-Function Experiments ‘a Clear Benefit’ to Society
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — an arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that in recent years has funded gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — has denied that such funding occurred.
Fauci told a House Appropriations subcommittee that $600,000 was given to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which funneled the money to WIV, over a five-year period for the purpose of studying bat coronaviruses and whether they could be transmitted to humans.
However, regarding gain-of-function (GOF) research, which refers to studies that have the potential to enhance the ability of pathogens to cause disease, including enhancing either their pathogenicity or transmissibility, Fauci said, “That categorically was not done.”
Pfizer Begins Low-Dose COVID Vaccine Trials in Young Children
With more than 144 million adults now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Pfizer is moving ahead with low-dose trials in children under 12-years-old and could begin mass vaccinations of kids in the fall. NBC News’ Maura Barrett is in Jefferson, Louisiana, where doctors are testing whether the vaccine is safe for children.
Pfizer Ready to Make COVID Vaccines for New Variants, CEO Says
CBS News via Yahoo!News reported:
Pfizer’s CEO is expressing confidence about the efficacy of his company’s COVID-19 vaccine against the Delta variant, which was first discovered in India and has America’s top scientists sounding the alarm.
“I feel quite comfortable that we cover it,” Pfizer CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla told CBS News’ Jan Crawford. “We will not need a special vaccine for it. The current vaccine should cover it.”
Almost Third of 42 Britons Who Have Died From Delta Variant Had Received Second Vaccine
The Delta variant, also known as the variant first identified in India, is now the dominant COVID variant in the UK. While the COVID vaccine has been shown to be effective against it, new analysis by PHE has revealed 29% of COVID deaths from the strain had received two doses of the jab.
Research Suggests Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Reprograms Innate Immune Responses
Researchers in The Netherlands and Germany have warned that Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine induces complex reprogramming of innate immune responses that should be considered in the development and use of mRNA-based vaccines.
Jorge Domínguez-Andrés and colleagues say that while the vaccine has been shown to be up to 95% effective in preventing infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and subsequent COVID-19, little is known about the broad effects the vaccine may have on the innate and adaptive immune responses.”