Healthcare worker/Photo courtesy of Baltimore Sun
Vaccinated Marylanders are showing an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations.
More cases were recorded Tuesday than this time last year. While most of the cases are among unvaccinated people, there’s been an uptick in breakthrough cases among vaccinated people, reported WBAL.
The number of breakthrough infections among Marylanders increased more than 20% from June to August. In June, the number of COVID-19 diagnoses for vaccinated people was five percent. Now, that number has risen to 27 percent.
Dr. William Moss of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has explained this trend based on time and virus variants.
“It’s a combination of the time since vaccination and a variant that requires higher levels of antibodies to protect us. That’s probably creating this situation where we’re seeing more breakthrough infections,” he said.
The American Medical Association has issued guidance reminding the public that no vaccine can guarantee 100 percent efficacy and that breakthrough infections are not uncommon. They also noted that immunocompromised individuals are more likely to experience breakthrough illness after vaccination.
“There are inherent characteristics of the vaccine itself when it reacts with the patient and the comorbidities of the patient that would itself lead to ineffective immunization in certain populations,” explained Devang Sanghavi, MD.
In addition, the original vaccines were developed with the alpha variant in mind. Since then, there have been beta, delta, lambda, mu and other variants worldwide. Some of those have not yet made it stateside. However, they each have their own transmissibility rates, with some much worse than the alpha variant.
A booster shot has already begun implemented for the immunocompromised and is expected to be available to most people by the end of the month. However, the World Health Organization is calling for a moratorium on boosters until the end of the year.
Among Marylanders, there have been 11,454 total cases among fully vaccinated individuals as of Sept. 1. Of that number, 883 people required hospitalization. 82 fully vaccinated people died.
In Maryland, African-Americans have the highest COVID-19 infections and deaths.