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At the start of May, the CDC shifted from monitoring all reported breakthroughs to only those that result in hospitalization or death, Tom Clark, head of the vaccine evaluation unit for the CDC’s vaccine task force, said in an interview. The goal of the new strategy, according to the agency: maximize the quality of data collected on cases.
Total number of breakthrough infections reported to CDC9,245
| |
Females | 5,827 (63%) |
People aged 60 and older | 4,245 (45%) |
Asymptomatic infections | 2,525 (27%) |
Hospitalizations | 835 (9%) |
Deaths | 132 (1%) |
The CDC says its numbers are probably an undercount, since their surveillance system is passive and relies on voluntary reporting from state health departments that may not be complete.
The agency shifted its strategy because there’s few worrying patterns in the data collected so far, suggesting the focus should be on the most severe cases, Clark said. He added that the agency has planned other vaccine studies, including one with a network of health centers, to compare disease severity and frequency of variant infections between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.”
I certainly prefer more data studied as opposed to less data. But doesn’t seem too be “concerning” to focus resources on the more serious cases.