SALT LAKE CITY – Utah is approaching the milestone of 1 million residents who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine.
Of that number, more than 540,000 Utahns were fully vaccinated, according to data from the Utah Department of Health on Friday. But as that number increases, Utah is not alone in documented COVID-19 “breakthrough” cases. These are new cases of COVID-19, even after the complete vaccination.
Dr. Angela Dunn, Utah State Department of Health epidemiologist, confirmed on Thursday that there were 97 confirmed cases among the 521,000 fully vaccinated Utahns at that time, which represents less than 0.02% of the number of fully vaccinated Utahns in the United States. Thursday numbers.
“This is really incredible and shows the great effectiveness of the vaccines that we have,” she said of the low percentage of cases of advancement.
Many other US states have also reported a low number of innovative cases. The Washington State Department of Health acknowledged on Tuesday that it had 102 documented cases; the Star Tribune reported last week that there were 89 cases in Minnesota.
There are a few reasons for advances. First, specialist doctors say that no vaccine is 100% effective; health department officials did not specify which vaccine was administered in any of the discovery cases, but it is possible with any vaccine.
Second, public health officials have warned that variants of the coronavirus may make vaccines less effective.
So far, only two of the advance cases have been sequenced and both were variants originating in California, known as B.427 / 429. This is one of the variants that the state health department has not yet released in its data, and one less researched than the more well-known variants originating in Brazil, South Africa or the United Kingdom.
“There is some concern about the emerging variants that there will be a decrease in effectiveness between vaccines, but they are still very effective vaccines, which is fantastic,” she said. “We are not concerned that (variants) will decrease the effectiveness so much that it would have to change our public health strategy … science shows us that vaccines are still effective against variants.”
State health officials were still optimistic that the vaccine was doing its job, even after new cases emerged.
Dunn said there was a recent group of more than 15 innovative cases at a long-term care facility in Utah, but none of the individuals who tested positive had any symptoms. It was an indication that the vaccine was preventing serious illness, even if fully vaccinated people contracted COVID-19.
“This is a population that, before vaccination, would have a very high mortality rate,” she said. “This time, because of the vaccine, none of them showed symptoms.”
There were still five hospitalizations among the 97 documented cases in Utah. Dunn said all five were “older adults with underlying health problems”, which made it unclear whether their hospitalizations were linked to COVID-19 or because of their other health conditions.
The state plans to continue to track and sequence innovative cases in the future, which may allow public health specialists more information about how the variants influence the vaccination process. Dunn also encouraged Utahns to receive the vaccine as soon as possible, which can help to reduce the risk of spreading variants.
Dunn said, “It will keep us in the right direction and end this pandemic.”