(2021-05-25) Cdc Will Not Investigate Mild Infections In Vaccinated Americans

CDC Will Not Investigate Mild Infections in Vaccinated Americans. At least 10,000 vaccinated people were infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19) through the end of April. Now the agency has stopped pursuing the mildest cases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped investigating breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people unless they become so sick that they are hospitalized or die.

Earlier this year, the agency was monitoring all cases. Through the end of April, when some 101 million Americans had been vaccinated, the C.D.C. had received 10,262 reports of breakthrough infections

The numbers suggest that the vaccines are highly effective and generally working as expected. On May 1, the agency decided to investigate only the most severe breakthrough infection cases, while still collecting voluntary reports on breakthrough cases from state and local health departments.

Some scientists support the decision to focus on the illnesses that cause deaths, tax hospitals and overwhelm the health care system. Still, the move has been controversial.

Critics say the agency is missing important opportunities to learn about the real-world effectiveness of the different vaccines and to gather information that might help identify trends in the pandemic’s trajectory — for example, how long vaccine protection lasts, or how various vaccines compare in preventing infection with variants, or whether certain patients like older people are more susceptible to breakthrough infections.

But even relatively mild cases of Covid-19 can lead to persistent long-term health problems, and it will be difficult to know the full scope without tracking mild infections as well.

Another rationale given for not tracking all breakthrough infections is that they are not likely to result in further spread of the virus. But the scientific evidence for this is not conclusive, some experts say.