CDC: Vaccinated As Likely To Spread Covid As Unvaccinated

CDC Says Vaccinated May Be as Likely to Spread COVID as Unvaxxed, as Reports of Serious Injuries After Vaccines Surge

Megan Redshaw

Data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed total reports of serious injuries following COVID vaccination, across all age groups, spiked by 14,717 — to 63,000 — compared with the previous week.

The data comes directly from reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

Every Friday, VAERS makes public all vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date, usually about a week prior to the release date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.

Data released today show that between Dec. 14, 2020 and July 23, 2021, a total of 518,770 total adverse events were reported to VAERS, including 11,940 deaths — an increase of 535 over the previous week. There were 63,102 serious injuries reported during the same time period — up 14,717 compared with the previous week.

Excluding “foreign reports” filed in VAERS, 435,007 adverse events, including 5,612 deaths and 34,890 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S.

In the U.S., 340.4 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of July 23. This includes: 137 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine, 189 million doses of Pfizer and 13 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID vaccine.

Of the 5,612 U.S. deaths reported as of July 23, 14% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 20% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 34% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.

This week’s U.S. data for 12- to 17-year-olds show:

• 15,086 total adverse events, including 909 rated as serious and 16 reported deaths — one less than what VAERS showed last week. Two of the nine deaths were suicides.
• The most recent reported deaths include a 13-year-old boy (VAERS I.D. 1463061) who died after receiving a Moderna vaccine, a 16-year-old boy (VAERS I.D. ​​1466009) who died after receiving his second dose of Pfizer and a 16-year-old boy (VAERS I.D. 1475434) who died with an enlarged heart six days after receiving his first Pfizer dose.

Other reports include two 13-year-old boys (VAERS I.D. 1406840  and 1431289) who died two days after receiving a Pfizer vaccine, three 15-year-olds (VAERS I.D. 1187918, 1382906 and 1242573), three 16-year-olds (VAERS I.D. 1420630, 1225942 and 1386841) and three 17-year-olds (VAERS I.D. 1199455, 1388042 and 1420762).

• 2,223 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds with 99% of cases
  attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
• 394 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation) with 390 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
• 72 reports of blood clotting disorders, with all cases attributed to Pfizer.

This week’s total U.S. VAERS data, from Dec. 14, 2020 to July 23, 2021, for all age groups combined, show:

• 21% of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.
• 54% of those who died were male, 43% were female and the remaining death reports did not include gender of the deceased.
• The average age of death was 73.4.
• As of July 23, 2,572 pregnant women reported adverse events related to COVID vaccines, including 885 reports of miscarriage or premature birth.
• Of the 2,483 cases of Bell’s Palsy reported, 50% were attributed to Pfizervaccinations, 43% to Moderna and 6% to J&J.
• 467 reports of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, with 39% of cases attributed to Pfizer, 36% to Moderna and 24% to J&J.
• 119,539 reports of anaphylaxis with 44% of cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine, 48% to Moderna and 8% to J&J.
• 7,864 reports of blood clotting disorders. Of those, 3,336 reports were attributed to Pfizer, 2,846 reports to Moderna and 1,637 reports to J&J.
• 1,944 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis with 1,819 cases attributed to Pfizer, 639 cases to Moderna and 68 cases to J&J’s COVID vaccine.

Internal CDC document reveals vaccinated, even if not sick, can spread virus

The CDC now says even those people fully vaccinated for COVID are able to get, and spread, the virus.

According to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post, the CDC said it’s time to “Acknowledge the war has changed.”

The document outlined unpublished data showing fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people, CNN reported.

It concludes the delta variant is “highly contagious, likely to be more severe” and that “breakthrough infections may be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases.”

“‘I think the central issue is that vaccinated people are probably involved to a substantial extent in the transmission of delta,’ Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University epidemiologist, wrote in an email after reviewing the CDC slides.

“‘In some sense, vaccination is now about personal protection — protecting oneself against severe disease. Herd immunity is not relevant as we are seeing plenty of evidence of repeat and breakthrough infections.’”

Since January, people who got infected after vaccination make up an increasing portion of hospitalizations and in-hospital deaths among COVID patients, according to the CDC documents. That trend coincides with the spread of the Delta variant.

The Post also reported today on a CDC study revealing three-fourths of people infected in a Massachusetts COVID outbreak were vaccinated. The report bolsters the hypothesis that vaccinated people can spread the more transmissible variant, and may be a factor in the summer surge of infections.

The data, detailed in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, provided key evidence that convinced agency scientists to reverse recommendations on mask-wearing and advise that vaccinated individuals wear masks in indoor public settings in some circumstances, The Post reported.

Thus far, researchers have focused on viral load — a term for how much of the virus is present in infected peoples’ bodies — which can affect transmissibility and severity. Infections with the Delta variant lead to higher levels of virus in the body, even in breakthrough cases in fully vaccinated individuals, the document said.

If vaccinated people get infected anyway, they have as much virus in their bodies as unvaccinated people — that means they’re as likely to infect someone else as unvaccinated people who get infected, CNN reported.

“The bottom line was that, in contrast to the other variants, vaccinated people, even if they didn’t get sick, got infected and shed virus at similar levels as unvaccinated people who got infected,” Dr. Walter Orenstein, who heads the Emory Vaccine Center and who viewed the documents, told CNN.