COVID-19: Study shows infections getting higher among vaccinated people

A recent study published by King’s College in London, which operates the ZOE COVID Study app to monitor COVID infection and vaccination rates, found that, as of July 15 there was an average of 15,537 new daily symptomatic cases of COVID-19 among partly or fully vaccinated people in the UK — an increase of 40% from the previous week’s total of 11,084 new cases.

The Zoe COVID Study, led by epidemiologist Tim Spector, M.D., of Kings College in London, estimated that there were 17,581 new daily symptomatic cases of COVID-19 in unvaccinated people, or 22% less than the previous week’s total of 22,638 new cases.

According to a press release issued by the study’s authors, “With cases in the vaccinated group continuing to rise, the number of new cases in the vaccinated population is set to overtake the unvaccinated in the coming days.”

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With a population of more than 66 million people, two-thirds of adults in the UK have received COVID-19 vaccine, representing a total of 82,592,996 vaccinations as of July 20. Some 46,349,709 Britons have received the first dose and 36,243,287 have gotten the second dose. The country is not vaccinating children.

In Israel, about 60% of the country’s population of 9.3 million has received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine. About 85% of adults in Israel have been vaccinated. Yet most of the new coronavirus infections are occurring in vaccinated people.

There has also been a concerning rise in the number of vaccinated people in Israel being hospitalized. An article in The Jerusalem Post last week noted that the Israeli Health Ministry reported 124 people had been hospitalized for COVID-19 on July 20 and that 65% of them were fully vaccinated. Of the 124 people, 62 were in serious condition and 70% of those patients were fully vaccinated.

Earlier this month, the Health Ministry estimated that Pfizer/BioNTech’s BNT162b2 COVID biologic was only 64% effective in preventing symptomatic infections of COVID-19, specifically those caused by the Delta variant. But the effectiveness rate for Pfizer’s experimental COVID vaccine in preventing infection (and transmission) could be lower.

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Another example of a highly vaccinated country which has been experiencing a new outbreak of coronavirus infections mostly among its vaccinated population is Chile. Of the thousands of new coronavirus cases being reported daily in that country, 80% of them are in vaccinated people. Chile has fully vaccinated 55% of its population.

The examples of the U.K., Israel and Chile, as well as other highly vaccinated countries like the Seychelles and Mongolia experiencing coronavirus infections mostly within the vaccinated segments of their populations pose a dilemma. The governments of these countries have to decide if the problem is that not enough of their people have been vaccinated, or that the vaccines are simply not as effective as initially assumed they would be.