Breakthrough cases aren't the cause of the US Covid-19 surge

[IronLionZion]

https://www.vox.com/22602039/breakthrough-cases-covid-19-delta-variant-masks-vaccines

The last week’s headlines were not comforting for Americans vaccinated for Covid-19.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its guidance to recommend everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in Covid-19 hot spots. A study of an outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts, found around three-quarters of people infected there were vaccinated. As cases increase nationwide, it’s understandable to think that breakthrough cases (infections in vaccinated people) are now a main driver of the ongoing Covid-19 surge.

But the evidence is clear: The problem is the unvaccinated population. If more people got the vaccines, the current surge wouldn’t be as big; it certainly wouldn’t lead to the levels of hospitalization and death now seen across the US. This was true months ago, and remains true today.

Unvaccinated people still make up the vast majority of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. They’ve made up more than 94 percent of reported Covid-19 cases in states with available data, a report last week from the Kaiser Family Foundation found. They’ve also made up similar, or higher, shares of hospitalizations and deaths.

Then there’s what really happened in the Provincetown outbreak. The headlines noted three-fourths of people infected by the virus were vaccinated. But among the more than 900 cases tracked as a result of the outbreak, just seven led to hospitalization — and there were zero deaths. If this was 2020, when there were no vaccines, closer to 90 people would have been hospitalized and about nine would have died, based on hospitalization and death rates over the last year.

“The vaccines are upholding their promise to massively prevent serious disease, hospitalizations, and death,” Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases doctor at the University of California San Francisco, told me. “That’s the main message I get from that outbreak.”

Reality is looking better than what some news reports might have us believe.

[MyMission]

1. We know that, but misinformation abounds

And I've heard several unvaccinated people blaming the surge on those of us who are vaccinated.
How ridiculous!

MSM isn't helping, with headlines that imply otherwise.

[Ms. Toad]

3. No one, but right wing idiots, would suggest that vaccinated individuals

caused the surge.

To the extent we are not taking secondary mitigation measures we ARE contributing to making it worse (by spreading the virus to children who cannot be vaccinated, and others who aren't) and by creating the potential for the development of preventable new variants.

[MyMission]

23. I absolutely agree!

About right wing idiots and that we who are vaccinated still need to continue with protective measures.

And yet MSM often echoes the rhetoric circulating or brewing in conservative circles.
They throw out a lot of crap and some of it spreads. I saw this crap coming a few weeks ago.

And the subject article of this thread is a rebuttal to their blathering and lies.

This is a pandemic. We're still in it. It didn't go away.
Yes, it will mutate again. That's what viruses do.
Vaccines alone won't stop it right now. Perhaps when most of the earth is vaccinated, or perhaps it will be like needing a flu shot every year.

Until then wear a mask, avoid crowds, get boosters when available, wear a mask.

[IronLionZion]

4. Conservative media is pushing the "shedding" lie

knowing that conservatives will draw incorrect conclusions that vaccinated people are spreading the virus. It's correlation not causation. it goes along with Delta has higher viral loads in the nasal area, but not the lungs.

[Ms. Toad]

2. They are not the cause -

they are a consequence, and if vaccinated don't take steps to prevent contracting and spreading, they are a contributory factor.

ALL people infected with COVID can spread it - vaccination status is irrelevant.
ALL people infected with COVID can be the source of variants (and there is at least a strong theoretical basis for that potential being greater in vaccinated individuals)

The issue isn't who caused it - the issue is how do we get out of it wtih the least damage. That includes ALL of us doing our part to avoid contributing to making it worse by masking and social distancing - because even if we did not cause it we live in a community where disease is rampant and becoming a breakthrough case contribute to the problem.

[IronLionZion]

5. Vaxed and Masked people are doing our part

what else do you want us to do? It's the other folks who are spreading it and causing new variants.

[Ms. Toad]

7. "And masked" is fine.

My issue is with the crew who are still insisting that vaxed means they don't need to wear masks. I'd also avoid large indoor crowds.

But the big thing I'm angry about is the very vocal (if not large) crowd who pretends that masking is purely a personal choice and has no consequences beyond their own personal health - when, in reality, failing to mask contributes to the public health crisis.

If you're vaxed and masking, I'm not going to quibble about anything beyond that.

[IronLionZion]

9. Many of us felt CDC changed their guidance too soon

so of course they had to backtrack again as cases increased this summer. People get confused and irritated by that.

I never stopped masking indoors around people.

[obamanut2012]

15. I was fully vaxxed by mid April, this mask hasn't come off

It comes off at home, when I am walking, biking, or playing golf, and when I'm in my office at work with the door closed. No one is even allowed in our department's office unless they are masked. I won't allow them in. Everyone I work with, thank God, is vaxxed and masked, too. We are in SOFL. I have seen way more masks the last two days. We had a mandate until DeSantis and the CDC scuttled it.

[Blues Heron]

6. If they're spreading the virus they're spreading the virus

the clinical outcome of the cases are obviously better if vaxxed, but if they're still spreading it they are most definitely participating in the surge. Mask up, isolate, distance. that's the way to BLOCK the virus from spreading.

[Calculating]

8. How does this ever end though?

Most normal people aren't going to mask and distance for the rest of their lives. Covid is going to become one of the many endemic cold and flu viruses eventually, it's not going away.

[IronLionZion]

10. We hope it would become less severe over time

where vaccines, immunity from infection, and new variants become less dangerous. this virus has gives us many surprises already and the world has a lot of people.

[Blues Heron]

11. Most abnormal people won't mask

normal people know the way to stop the virus is masking up and vaxxing up. We defeated the scourges of polio and smallpox, we can defeat this. The only thing stopping us is defeatist thinking.

[Calculating]

19. Polio and smallpox don't mutate like covid

That's why it was possible to fully wipe them out with vaccines. Covid just keeps spinning off new variants, and even vaxed people can carry it leading to more mutations.

[Blues Heron]

21. all the more reason to keep masking

Keep distancing, stay out of the bars etc. Like I said, the only thing standing in our way is defeatist attitudes.

We can definitely beat this thing. The vaccines are working on the variants, we need full participation though, so the vaccine mandates and passports are key. People need to know that restrictions on the unvaxxed are for their own safety.

[Initech]

16. I was wondering the same thing.

If I had to go through another year of virtual events I was going to smash my web cam and throw my monitor out the window.

The thing is like influenza, COVID will mutate to the point where it stops being a public health emergency. I can't see this going on for another year at the most. I see ways that it could possibly get worse, but I'm hoping that vaccines and the subsequent boosters we'll need will provide us adequate protection for years to come.

[Tarc]

12. We need to do what we can to keep safe those with genuine reasons to be unvaccinated

1. Actual medical conditions or circumstances.
2. Children under the age for which the vaccine has been approved. (12?)

After that...I have no concerns for or sympathy for the willfully unvaccinated. Mother Nature needs to cull that herd, soon.

[appalachiablue]

13. I missed the 'either or'/'mask or vaccine'

announcement, glad of it. Any and all tools are needed to stem this viral pandemic.

[IronLionZion]

18. That is outdated CDC guidance from May

of which many of us thought was too soon. The new guidance is masks for anyone in areas of high community spread regardless of vaccination status. They are punting the decision to local governments who are often blocked by state governments if it's a red state.

[appalachiablue]

20. Glad I missed the official report in May, thanks

The mask stays on unless I'm in a low pop. outdoor area, or around people with known vaccine status.

[Botany]

14. Fox News, Right Wing Talkers, the GOP, and people's Pastors kill end of story.

"Unvaccinated people still make up the vast majority of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths."

[Initech]

24. Right now, Fox News, AM radio, and right wing propaganda are far more damaging to your health...

Than any amount of crack, heroin, LSD, or crystal meth could ever do to you!

[Beartracks]

17. It's not surprising when unvaxxed people get sick. But when a few vaxxed people get sick...

... it seems that's ALL the media talks about, and that give the impression that it's happening ALL the time ALL over the place. When it's not.

==============

[DallasNE]

22. DU Should Not Have Allowed That Article To Be Posted

On the surface it was an outliner. Plus, it totally lacked context. Bluntly, it did not pass the smell test. Using the headline it made it seem that vaccinated people were more likely to get Covid than unvaccinated people. It had to be written by an anti-vaxxer.

[uponit7771]

25. +1, it looked funny to me too and the M$M know most people are innumerate

[Peppertoo]

26. YES

[BlueIdaho]

27. I think we are experiencing medical "whataboutism."

The M$M platforms are full of misinformation about the number and severity of breakthrough covid cases. The truth is 99.992% of vaccinated Americans are NOT catching the Delta variant. This is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated- don’t let anyone pull this shit on you.