CDC Data, 58% of August Covid Deaths Were Breakthroughs — Higher in Maine.
Posted by Ed Folsom, November 25, 2022.
It turns out that 58% of recorded U.S. COVID-19 deaths in August occurred in people who had received at least a primary COVID-19 vaccination series or received that and at least one booster dose. The story that broke the news appeared in the Washington Post on Wednesday, 11/23/22, the day before Thanksgiving, behind the WaPo’s paywall. I have not paid to pierce that paywall. But the underlying investigation of CDC data was done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the substance of the WaPo article was picked up by other news outlets. According to a story about it in the Washington Times, Cynthia Cox, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation told the Washington Post: “We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Well, well, well… We can no longer say that, hmmm?
Some of you might recall President Biden’s forceful declarations last year, preceding the rollout of vaccine mandates for continued employment in various fields, that the COVID-19 pandemic is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” It was never true, but to the extent anyone is still making that claim, Cynthia Cox would evidently have you know that you are spreading mis- or dis- information. And it’s already been established for some time now that when President Biden told you last year that you would not get COVID-19 if you got vaccinated, that was either mis- or dis- information too.
Just the day before the Washington Post story broke, on Tuesday of Thanksgiving Week, the White House Covid response coordinator, Dr. Ashisha Jha, dropped another mis- or dis- information doozy on us when he told us that “we” now “know” that if people keep their vaccinations up to date and get treatment for COVID-19 when they get COVID-19, “We can prevent essentially every Covid death in America.”
That’s right, it was the very next day when the Washington Post story revealed that 58% of Covid deaths in August were in vaccinated or vaccinated and boosted people. So, for Dr. Jha to have been telling the truth, either virtually nobody in that 58% was up to date on boosters or none among them received any treatment when they got Covid, before they died.
According to the U.S. CDC, 68.7% of the U.S. population has completed a primary COVID-19 vaccine series. That means 58% of U.S. COVID-19 deaths in August occurred among the roughly 68% of the population that is vaccinated. It also means that the remaining 42% of August COVID-19 deaths occurred in the 32% of the population that is unvaccinated.
How does that compare with what’s been happening in Maine lately? The U.S. CDC’s website says that 86.4% of Maine’s population has completed a primary vaccine series. This is higher than the 75.85% reported by Maine’s own vaccination dashboard. Why the significant discrepancy? Who knows? When it comes to government Covid data, if you’ve been paying any attention at all you’ve got to expect a certain looseness.
In any event, Maine’s most recent report on “breakthrough” COVID-19 infections covers the period through November 20, 2022. According to the Maine CDC’s “breakthrough” numbers*:
- Between 10/23 and 11/20, breakthroughs were 78.87% of all deaths with COVID-19 in Maine (56 of 71).
- This is up from 76.27% between 9/20 and 10/23 (45 of 59).
- Between 10/23 and 11/20, breakthrough hospitalizations were 75.6% of all hospitalizations with COVID-19 (155 of 205).
- This is up from 71.77% between 9/20 and 10/23 (239 of 333).
- Between 10/23 and 11/20, breakthrough COVID-19 cases were 77.57% of all recorded COVID-19 cases (3,616 of 4,661).
- This is up from 65.99% between 9/20 and 10/23 (5,598 of 8,482).
Using the Maine COVID-19 vaccination dashboard’s numbers, that means:
- Nearly 79% of COVID-19 deaths recorded between 10/23 and 11/20 occurred in the 75.85% of the Maine population that received at least a primary vaccine series. That leaves about 21% of COVID-19 deaths during the period among the 24.15% who are considered unvaccinated.
- For COVID hospitalizations, 75.6% involved people in the 75.85% of the population that received at least a primary vaccine series, leaving 24.4% among the 24.15% of the population considered unvaccinated.
- For recorded COVID-19 cases, 77.57% occurred in the 75.85% of the population that has received at least a primary vaccine series, leaving 22.43% of the cases in the 24.15% of the population considered unvaccinated.
- All categories of “breakthroughs” — deaths, hospitalizations and cases — are proportionally on the rise.
And that’s the way it is.
*The Maine CDC posts cumulative breakthrough numbers only. I am able to report periodic increases because I have recorded them at each (roughly) weekly updating of the figures.
