The Philadelphia Inquirer is all about pushing COVID-19 vaccinations and editorially supports vaccine mandates, mask mandates, all sorts of mandates, so it was with some surprise that I read the following:

The latest on breakthrough cases

Plus, vaccine mandates at Penn State and for the Philly Marathon

by Anthony R Wood | Wednesday, October 13, 2021

The gist: The delta variant has been driving case numbers for months, but evidently another obstacle to ending the pandemic is emerging — waning immunity. Available figures indicated that vaccinated people accounted for more than 25% of the COVID-19 positive tests and hospitalizations in Pennsylvania during the last month. And state Department of Health officials said that was in line with national rates. That said, despite the breakthrough cases, data show that the fully vaccinated people are still less likely to get sick with the virus, and less likely to be hospitalized or die if they do get infected.

Vaccines continue to protect against COVID-19, but latest Pa. data show signs of waning effectiveness

The latest Pennsylvania figures are a change from numbers released last month covering the entirety of the vaccination effort. From Jan. 1 to Oct. 4, the state reported just 9% of COVID-19 infections were breakthrough cases, and just 7% of those hospitalized had been vaccinated. By contrast, in the past month, out of 4,989 hospitalizations, almost 1,300 were fully vaccinated people. One factor in driving up those numbers likely would be the fact that more people have been vaccinated.

The author, Mr Wood, then references an article from five days previously:

Vaccines continue to protect against COVID-19, but latest Pa. data show signs of waning effectiveness

The majority of people infected or hospitalized by COVID-19 are unvaccinated, but waning immunity appears to be playing a role in a growing number of vaccinated people ending up sick.

by Jason Laughlin | Friday, October 8, 2021

Pennsylvania’s latest data on COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations show vaccines continue to provide a significant defense against the virus, but also includes signs that waning immunity may be one factor in the virus’ spread.

More than a quarter of all COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations reported in the state over the past month were among fully vaccinated people, a number Pennsylvania Department of Health authorities said was in line with national rates. Out of 4,989 hospitalizations, almost 1,300 fully vaccinated people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the past month.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in September that the Pfizer vaccine’s protection against hospitalization waned significantly after four months.

The state’s figures are a big change from the numbers first released last month covering the entirety of the vaccination effort. From Jan. 1 to Oct. 4, the state reported just 9% of COVID-19 infections were breakthrough cases, and just 7% of those hospitalized had been vaccinated. Looking at all data from January to present conceals the recent effect of the highly transmissible delta variant and the vaccines’ reduced effectiveness, both relatively new developments.

The Inquirer report tells us that 26.06% of the hospitalization cases were among those fully vaccinated. You have to be careful reading, because when it states that “Out of 4,989 hospitalizations, almost 1,300 fully vaccinated people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the past month,” a too quick reading might have readers believing that there were “almost 1,300” cases among the vaccinated and 4,989 cases among the unvaccinated. When dealing with numbers, professional journalists have to be careful in how they phrase things, to avoid misleading people.

The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department likes to update its statistics, and has (sort of) good graphs. According to the city government, using CDC data, 74.2% of the county’s population 12 years of age and older are fully vaccinated, with 75.6% of those 18 or older. In a hard to read bar chart, the Health Department stated that about 85 fully vaccinated and 210 unvaccinated/partially vaccinated people were hospitalized with COVID-19 during September, if I’ve managed to read the chart accurately enough. That yields a 28.81% breakthrough rate in hospitalizations. Interestingly, the number of fully vaccinated hospitalizations slightly increased over August, but but significantly decreased among the unvaccinated, from roughly 255 to 210.

The number of breakthrough cases is increasing significantly, from 1,746 to 1,994, a 14.2% increase, while the non-breakthrough cases decreased from 4,051 to 3538, a 12.66% decrease. The total for Fayette County shows a 36.0% breakthrough rate for September, and the beginning data for October — which may be incomplete — is showing a 37.6% breakthrough case rate.

Overall, numbers are dropping, but now the experts are telling us that, at least with the Pfizer vaccine, virus resistance is showing a significant decline after about four months.

Back to the Inquirer:

The CDC reported people 65 and older are particularly susceptible to waning immunity. The agency authorized boosters of the Pfizer vaccine for vulnerable people and people in some high-risk professions last month.

Johnson acknowledged that people who are not eligible for boosters have been getting them anyway. There isn’t any health risk to doing that, she said, but she didn’t recommend it, saying she didn’t want people to get doses they didn’t need.

It’s too soon to tell, she said, how booster shots are affecting infection and hospitalization rates among the vaccinated.

The risks associated with taking the vaccines are small, smaller than the risks of contracting the virus, but they are not zero. Yet President Biden and the Democrats want to compel people to get vaccinated, even though the vaccinated can contract, and spread, the virus. We don’t know, yet, whether the government will try to force those fully vaccinated to get a booster shot. But we do know one thing: the politics of vaccination have run far ahead of the effectiveness of the vaccines.