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Deeply saddened to learn of the loss of Gen. Colin Powell, I got to meet him a couple of times over the years, an extraordinary American. Already being asked about breakthrough deaths among the vaccinated, will answer in attached tweet.
According to CDC among 187 million vaccinated Americans there have been roughly 7,000 breakthrough deaths, with >6,000 over the age of 65, as compared to >700,000 COVID deaths among the unvaccinated. So breakthrough deaths esp elderly can occur but rare https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html …
I don't really have a sense yet if breakthrough deaths are up more recently because of waning vaccine immunity, esp given that 3rd mRNA immunizations should bump up immunity again.
This would be especially important if Gen. Powell had underlying multiple myeloma as his wiki page suggests. Some studies indicate low responses to mRNA vaccines in MM patientshttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41375-021-01354-7 …
Also information on MM itself as a risk factor for severe COVID-19 due to low antibody production and anti MM Mabs and chemoRxhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7302217/ …
Here is a summary of MM patients and their response to vaccinations and risk of infection overallhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41375-020-01016-0 …
Do the victims usually have underlying conditions that make them more susceptible?
In NH they all seem to be over 60, which isn’t exactly “old”, but if it’s old enough to not get a good immune response from the vaccine that could be why.
Are both these numbers since vaccines became available? Anti-vaxxers will be swarming today so hoping to be able to respond apples to apples.
But @CDCgov is not actually recording data on breakthrough cases, correct?
Peter, I share your feelings of loss for a great American leader. Very sad news.
Regarding vaccine breakthrough, it’s really hard to know the impact when the @CDCgov made a decision to not track vaccine breakthrough cases except in most severe cases. We need more data.
They are however tracking breakthrough deaths, through passive hospital reporting, which means that there's a likelihood that many are being missed.
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