Video: Dr. Jeff Duchin’s COVID-19 press briefing – August 27, 2021

COVID-19, Jeff Duchin, ,

During his August 27 press briefing, Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin provided context around “breakthrough cases” and how risk changes for vaccinated people compared to unvaccinated people.

Graph showing age-adjusted daily rate of COVID-19 cases by vaccination status in King County since March 2021. The line representing fully vaccinated cases remains mostly flat, with a small increase beginning in August. High point is 10.6/100,000 people on August 17. The line representing unvaccinated cases is always higher and begins spiking in July, with a high of 77.2 cases/100,000 people on August 17.
Age-adjusted daily rate of COVID-19 cases by vaccination status, King County, WA, since March 2021.

As shown in the graph above, in the recent Delta surge, the age-adjusted rate of cases among people who are not fully vaccinated increased from 7 daily cases/100,000 people at the beginning of July, to 77 daily cases/100,000 people as of August 17. This is an increase of 70 new cases per day per 100,000 people.

During this same period, the age-adjusted rate of cases among fully vaccinated people increased from 1 daily case/100,000 people to 10 daily cases/100,000 people, an increase of 9 new cases per day/100,000 people.

Graph showing age-adjusted daily rate of hospitalized COVID-19 cases by vaccination status in King County since March 2021. The line representing fully vaccinated cases remains nearly flat, with a high point of .2/100,000 people on August 17. The line representing unvaccinated cases is always higher and begins spiking in July, with a high of 7.3 cases/100,000 people on August 17.
Age-adjusted daily rate of hospitalized COVID-19 cases by vaccination status, King County, WA, since March 2021.

Among not-fully-vaccinated people, age-adjusted hospitalizations increased from 1/100,000 people per day to 7/100,000 people per day. During this same time period, people who were fully vaccinated saw an increase from 0.04/100,000 people per day to 0.2/100,000 people per day.

The bottom line here is clearly that COVID-19 vaccines – which are primarily intended to prevent serious infections, hospitalizations and deaths – are working. These vaccines reduce the risk that a vaccinated person will catch and transmit COVID-19 and provide tremendous protection against severe infections, hospitalizations and death. But you need to get vaccinated for them to work.

Health Officer dr. Jeff duchin

Originally published August 31, 2021.