SALT LAKE CITY – Utah is approaching 1 million residents who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine.
Of that number, more than 540,000 Utahs have been fully vaccinated, according to data from the Utah Department of Health on Friday. But as that number increases, Utah isn’t alone in documented cases of “advanced” COVID-19. These are new cases of COVID-19 even after being completely vaccinated.
Dr. Angela Dunn, a state epidemiologist with the Utah Department of Health, confirmed Thursday that there were 97 confirmed cases of progress among the 521,000 fully vaccinated Utahs at the time, representing less than 0.02% of the number of ‘Utahn fully vaccinated until Thursday figures.
“This is really amazing and speaks to the great effectiveness of the vaccines we have,” he said about the low percentage of advanced cases.
Many other U.S. states also reported a low number of advanced cases. The Washington State Department of Health acknowledged Tuesday that it had 102 documented advanced cases; the Star Tribune reported last week that there were 89 cases in Minnesota.
There are some reasons for advanced 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 advanced 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 advanced 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 department of health has not yet provided information to the their data, and one less researched than the best-known variants that originated in Brazil, South Africa, or the United Kingdom.
“There is some concern with the emerging variants that there will be a decrease in effectiveness between vaccines, but they are still very effective vaccines, which is fantastic,” he said. “We don’t care that (variants) decrease 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 be doing its job even after cases of innovation appeared.
Dunn said there was a recent group of more than 15 advanced cases at a long-term care center in Utah, but none of those who tested positive showed symptoms. It was an indication that the vaccine prevented serious disease, even if fully vaccinated people contracted COVID-19.
“This is a population that, before vaccination, would have a very high mortality rate,” he said. “This time, because of the vaccine, none of them even showed symptoms.”
There have still been five hospitalizations among the 97 documented cases in Utah. Dunn said the five were “older adults with underlying health conditions,” making it unclear whether their hospitalizations were related to COVID-19 or because of their other health conditions.
The state plans to continue tracking and sequencing cases of innovation in the future, which could allow public health experts more information on how variants take the vaccination process into account. Dunn also encouraged Utahns to receive the vaccine as soon as possible, which may help reduce the risk of spreading variants.
Dunn said, “This will keep us moving in the right direction and end this pandemic.”