What are your chances of getting COVID? New CDC map charts breakthrough cases

Albert Khoury

2 years ago

Government agencies like the CDC and other healthcare institutions provide tools to keep the public informed on the spread of COVID-19 and the measures taken to combat the pandemic. Online charts, graphs and maps are a result of extensive research and are available for anyone to see.

Mayo Clinic has an online tool that helps you calculate your likelihood of contracting the virus. It’s based on location, vaccine status, social activities and protective measures such as wearing a mask indoors or outdoors. It’s a rough calculation and you may actually have fun coming up with scenarios. Tap or click here for more.

The CDC tracked the rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths by vaccination status earlier this year and put the results in an interactive graph. How well do vaccines work against COVID-19 infection and death? Read on to find out.

Here’s the backstory

The COVID-19 vaccine reduces your risk of contracting the virus and CDC studies show it reduces severe symptoms if you do contract COVID-19. The vaccine is not 100% effective and vaccinated people can still get COVID-19. These are called breakthrough cases.

The CDC is conducting numerous studies and working with jurisdictions to monitor how well vaccines work in breakthrough cases. The chart at covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status tracks the rate of COVID-19 cases or deaths over a period of time, which is currently April 4 to September 4, 2021.

Some notes on the chart:

Fully vaccinated means the person in the study had the novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen detected on a respiratory specimen at least 14 days after being fully vaccinated. This includes a 2-dose series such as the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or a single-dose vaccine such as Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine.
Unvaccinated people involved in the study had the novel coronavirus RNA or antigen detected on a respiratory specimen but had not received the vaccine.
Partially vaccinated people were left out of the study.
Deaths from COVID-19 were reviewed by health department staff using various data sources.
The list of 16 participating jurisdictions consists of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York City, Seattle/King County, Utah and Wisconsin.
Results will be updated over time.

COVID Data Tracker

The results so far

Let’s take a look at the peak point of the chart, August 15. Note that all incidents are per 100,000 people:

There were 736.72 infections among unvaccinated people. Meanwhile, people vaccinated with J&J had 171.92 infections, Pfizer-vaccinated people had 135.64 infections and the Moderna-vaccinated had 86.28 infections.
The highest number of cases by age group was 807.33 for unvaccinated people aged 30-49. The lowest number was fully vaccinated people aged 12-17 at 71.84.
In August, an unvaccinated person had a 6.1 times greater chance of testing positive for COVID-19 and an 11.3 times greater chance of dying from it compared to a fully vaccinated person.