This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
We are not even close to seeing the end of Covid and the longer a significantly large portion of the US population refuses to get vaccinated, or even wear masks, the longer it will last. And each and every one of those mask less anti-vaxxers become a living, spewing petri dish.
Well, this is a comforting way to start off the day. 
The CDC Only Tracks a Fraction of Breakthrough COVID-19 Infections, Even as Cases Surge
Well, I’m so shocked!!
I wrote a while ago that the CDC will never give an accurate portrayal of the scope regarding breakthrough cases. Partly, because they don’t want to undermine confidence in vaccines. Well, unless it’s certain vaccines.
Obviously I’m no virologist, but it was a stupid decision not to keep including the data. What was the harm?
Even if all it ultimately showed - which by all accounts it would - that the vaccines prevent hospitalizations and reduce symptomatic cases, that would be helpful. As it is, giving folks the impression - which officials did - that the chances of falling ill were nearly nonexistent after vaccination only fuels distrust now. Having anecdotes instead of facts harms the cause of getting as many people vaccinated as possible.
“The vaccinated are not as protected as they think,” said Topol, “They are still in jeopardy.”
Because too many are unvaccinated, some of whom “don’t trust the vaccine” but are fine with taking livestock dewormer bought at the feed store.
There’s a few details in this breakthrough thing that are not getting much coverage. More than 50% of them involve people known to be immunocomprised. CDC is soon going to recommend a 3rd vaccination for folks like that.
With regular FDA approval for Pfizer due in September, guess what the latest “I’m not gonna take it” reason is? Because the FDA recalled 300 drugs last year and this will be recalled. It should take 30 years (yes, that’s what’s being said) to know if something is safe.
It’s all over the comments sections on social media. Oh, those 300 drugs that were recalled? Looks like about half are for individual hand sanitizer brands and male performance enhancing supplements (all of which seem to contain unlisted ingredients that you’d find in the little blue pill). I didn’t see a single vaccine on that list and many were recalls for a single batch and the recalls have been terminated.
But - we know they never even looked at the list. Someone just told them that there are 300+ items on the FDA drug recall list and BAM! new excuse!
FDA may approve the Pfizer vaccine as early as Monday or Tuesday.
Similar approval for Moderna can’t be far behind.
They already did, over a week ago.
Full approval for Moderna’s COVID vaccine is likely to follow a few months after Pfizer’s. Pfizer announced that it had applied for full approval of its vaccine for people ages 16+ on May 7. It did not receive priority status from the FDA until two months later.
Moderna applied for full approval of its vaccine in people age 18 and up on June 1. As of Thursday, the FDA has not yet granted Moderna priority review. Based on the Pfizer timeline, that’s not likely to happen until sometime in August. That marks the PDUFA goal date around February or March 2022 for Moderna’s version
https://www.news10.com/news/when-will-covid-vaccines-get-full-fda-approval/
I’d be more happy to see an EUA for 5-11 year-olds. Otherwise it’s manslaughter in the schools
I don’t see FDA full approval as being a game changer. People who are vaccine leery will just find another excuse. And full approval won’t make the Pfizer/Moderana vaccine last longer before protection wanes.
A third shot will help the waning issue, but when will the fourth and fifth shot be needed?
Or, …, it’s adaptive management. Scientists and the medical community change their minds all the time as new data and observations roll in.
This latest development is seen by some as another example of shifting public health messaging and backpedaling that has accompanied every phase of the pandemic for 19 months through two administrations. A little more than a month ago, the CDC and the FDA released a joint statementsaying that those who have been fully vaccinated “do not need a booster shot at this time.”
Also, who are “some?”
Also as of 7/30/21,
“The rate of breakthrough cases reported among those fully vaccinated is below 1% in all reporting states, ranging from 0.01% in Connecticut to 0.54% in Arkansas.”
What is it now?
Not criticism, I just want to know.
ETA, an approx. 50 fold increase in breakthrough cases in AR compared to CT. Why?
The goal of the vaccines was to prevent hospitalization and death. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines been outstandingly effective. Early on in the pandemic it was relatively easy to test and contact trace infections. The data now are unequivocally certain that the delta virus is highly contagious.
Keeping track of infections in schools, nursing homes, and other populations may be the what local health authorities can report with any confidence. There are also home testing kits where results are never reported.
It’s a mess and epidemiologists must be freaked about the incomplete and inaccurate data. Perhaps I’m too simplistic, but being a retired professor in molecular biology—at this point—I’m convinced that being vaccinated, wearing masks, limit interactions when hospitalization is high, is enough for me.
It is possible that a once a year Covid vax is in our future similar to the once a year flu shot.
The booster discussion will be used as the excuse for the hesitant: “see, they don’t really know what they are doing”. The fact that many vaccinations require (regular) boosters to maintain antibody levels – tetanus for one, while the shingles vaccine is basically a booster for chicken pox – will definitely be completely forgotten in the yammering.
About once a year – like flu vaccines.
Probably not a good comparison. The “flu shot” is a guesstimate, at best, of what strains might show up in a given season. This is something specific for one virus - and we’re just trying to ramp up the antibodies.
I think it will pull in some, but not game changing argeed. What it will help is vaccine related mandates, from a legal standing perspective.
Doesn’t seem to be that much evidence that the protection from severe illness and hospitalization has waned. Honestly, most of this “breakthrough” data is better news than it sounds.
Soon, if we actually go through with large scale 3rd doses.
We should be sending as many vaccines as we can to places that will get them in arms. Rather than going 3rd dose in the generally healthy population.
I vote we send plane full to Afghanistan, watch Republican anti vaxxers try to say it’s bad to give the Vax to another country until more Americans are Vaxxed
Maybe not a game changer, but I think it will have some impact. One of my idiot relatives has been holding off getting vaccinated because it’s “experimental” due to the EUA. That excuse goes away with full approval, and maybe that will tip them over the edge.