Delta is fueling a fresh COVID spike across the nation — yet CDC figures show, as The Post recently reported, that nearly all new cases involve those who haven’t been vaccinated.
As for New York: Who knows? Neither the city nor state regularly publishes COVID-case breakdowns according to vax status.
That’s a huge mistake, particularly because national data show vaccines are incredibly effective against the Delta variant.
The Post recently cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showing that just a tiny fraction of Americans who’d gotten jabbed — 5,601 out of 161 million (or 0.0035 percent) — later caught the bug and had to be hospitalized. An even tinier portion, 1,141 (0.0007 percent), died.
Yet this week, spokesmen for the city and state health departments couldn’t provide similar data. Nor could they say how many COVID patients who were hospitalized or died had been vaccinated.
Why not? A full 44 states shared breakthrough-case data with The New York Times. Three (Iowa, Missouri, Pennsylvania) told the paper they didn’t track them; another three (Florida and Kansas as well as New York) simply didn’t share info. And the Times’ state-by-state info universally shows the vaccinated represent a minuscule portion of those hospitalized for COVID.
What local data are available suggest that new cases in New York also involve almost exclusively those who’ve yet to get their shots and that getting jabbed gives you near-full protection.
In July, for example, a state Department of Health spokesperson said just 8,700 of the 11 million vaccinated Empire State residents had tested positive for COVID (about 0.08 percent). This week, spokesman Jeffrey Hammond put the figure at just 0.2 percent.
Yet Hammond couldn’t provide underlying numbers for that or data showing how many recent COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths concerned fully vaccinated New Yorkers and how many the un-vaxxed.
“DOH tracks breakthrough cases,” he told The Post, without supplying any additional info. The department, he added, “is working closely with the CDC to coordinate the release of more detail very soon.”
The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene similarly has no current breakdowns, yet at least it seems to understand their importance: Last month it released findings of a study showing vaccinated New Yorkers made up just 1.1 percent of COVID cases, 1.6 percent of hospitalizations and 1.2 percent of deaths. Yet that covered data through only June 15. New cases have risen steadily since then, but the agency provided no updated figures.
“We do track breakthrough infections and have reported them,” said city spokesman Patrick Gallahue. “Our routine reporting has continued to evolve over time.”
Yet if breakthrough cases are so tiny (again, representing just one out of every 500 jabbed New Yorkers statewide, per Hammond), and hospitalizations and deaths are just a small fraction of that, why not track, update and tout that regularly — to show the vaccine’s effectiveness and encourage more New Yorkers to get vaxxed?
True, the state’s inoculation rate (68 percent of those over 18 are fully vaxxed) is higher than in some other places in America. Yet some groups here are lagging: Just 39 percent of black adults in the city are fully vaxxed and 54 percent of Hispanics.
New Empire State COVID cases are comparatively low, with just 3,222 reported Tuesday. Yet the seven-day average has rocketed nearly 10-fold since the end of June.
If these cases primarily involve the unvaccinated, New Yorkers deserve to know that, especially if they are to weigh the need for any new COVID restrictions. We should not be held hostage to those who refuse to take a vaccine.
And rather then hectoring the non-vaxxed, showing the effectiveness of the drug is a much better way to encourage more people to get the shot.