Lead researcher for CDC's Vaccine Breakthrough Team has confirmed that fully-vaxed patients who are hospitalized & incidentally test positive for SARS-CoV-2 are NOT seen as COVID hospitalizations or deaths
This is a sharp contrast to the CDC’s stance during the pandemic🧵
2/The email was a response to my inquiry re: data in the team's 5/28/21 report. I asked about the diff (if any) btw 2 categories of vaxed patients
Researcher confirmed "asymp or hospitalized for a reason unrelated to COVID-19" are mutually exclusive cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…
3/ Evaluating reported breakthru infections, the CDC team distinguishes 3 kinds of hosp patients. Per email, Patients B & C are "cases [they] know are not related to infection...whose outcomes were clearly NOT related to C19."
Patient A? Data "isn’t strong enough to say"
4/ Per the team's end of May report, nearly 30% of vaccinated hospitalized-for-some-reason patients tested positive for the virus.
Again, the lead researcher says these are "cases we know are not related to infection."
5/This is a departure from the CDC's implicit counting standards that have been applied throughout the pandemic
All three "positive patient types" are included in local, state, & national data -- even tho there's no reason Patient B or C should be in case, hosp, or death numbers
6/ To be clear, I agree with the approach in the left image, as a starting point for reporting ALL data - not just breakthrough infections.
What would our national numbers look like if it were applied?
Hint: very different
7/ Here's a table view of the same information.
Again, there's no earthly reason for the differential standards.
8/ In many ways, the first sentence in the email is the most 😳
Quite an admission from the agency that has liberally defined COVID cases, hospitalizations, & deaths for over a year - to the detriment of the economy, mental health, & societal fabric, among other things
9/ I don’t wish COVID were smallpox, but the truth is, many deadly pathogens have clear-cut, telltale signs that leave little doubt about cause.
By contrast, for this virus, we have the "any death within x number of days of a positive test" definition.
Sloppy, at best.
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