SALT LAKE CITY – Utah is approaching the number of millions of residents who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine.
Of that number, more than 540,000 Utahns were completely vaccinated, according to the Utah Department of Health on Friday. But as this number grows, Utah is not the only documented “discovery” of COVID-19 cases. These are new cases of COVID-19 even after complete vaccination.
Dr. Angela Dunn, a state epidemiologist for the Utah Department of Health, confirmed Thursday that there were 97 confirmed cases of discovery among the 521,000 fully vaccinated Utahns at the time, accounting for less than 0.02% of the number of fully vaccinated Utahns up to Thursday’s figures. .
“This is really amazing and talks about the high effectiveness of the vaccines we have,” she said of the low percentage of discovery cases.
Many other US states have also reported a low number of discovery cases. The Washington State Department of Health admitted Tuesday that it has 102 documented cases of the discovery; Star Tribune reported last week that there were 89 cases in Minnesota.
There are several reasons for discovery cases. First, medical experts quickly say that no vaccine is 100% effective; Health department officials did not specify which vaccine was given in any of the discovery cases, but it is possible with any vaccine.
Second, public health officials have warned that coronavirus variants could make vaccines less effective.
So far, only two of the discovery cases have been sequenced and both were variants originating in California, known as B.427 / 429. This is one of the variants about which the state health department has not yet provided information in its data and one less researched than the more well-known variants that came from Brazil, South Africa or the United Kingdom.
“There are some concerns about the variants that appear to be of low efficacy among vaccines, but they are still very effective vaccines, which is fantastic,” she said. We are not worried that (variants) will decrease the effectiveness so much that we should change our public health strategy … science shows us that vaccines are still effective against variants.
State health officials were still optimistic that the vaccine would do its job even after the discovery.
Dunn said there was a recent group of more than 15 cases of discovery in a long-term care facility in Utah, but none of those who tested positive showed symptoms. It was an indication that the vaccine prevents severe disease, even if fully vaccinated people have contracted COVID-19.
This is a population that, before vaccination, would have a very high mortality rate, she said. This time, due to the vaccine, none of them showed symptoms.
There were five more hospitalizations among the 97 documented cases in Utah. Dunn said all five were “older adults with underlying health conditions,” which made it unclear whether their hospitalizations were related to COVID-19 or because of their other health conditions.
The state intends to continue to monitor the follow-up and succession of discovery cases in the future, which could allow public health experts to better understand how the variants influence the vaccination process. Dunn encouraged Utahns to receive the vaccine as soon as possible, which may help reduce the risk of the vaccines spreading.
Dunn said, “This will keep us moving in the right direction and put an end to this pandemic.”