Saturday, May 01, 2021

Breakthrough oddity

From the CDC, on "breakthrough cases":
Total number of
vaccine breakthrough
infections reported to CDC
7,157
Females 4,580 (64%)
People aged ≥60 years 3,265 (46%)
Asymptomatic infections 2,078 (31%)
Hospitalizations* 498 (7%)
Deaths† 88 (1%)

*167 (34%) of the 498 hospitalizations were reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.

†11 (13%) of the 88 fatal cases were reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.


This is curious. Why would more women than men be reported as having the disease after vaccination? Rates of unvaccinated infection are reported as being the same, though men are more likely to get a bad case. Maybe the false positive rate is greater for women. If so, the "Asymptomatic" group should be almost all female. Or maybe women are just twice as likely to get themselves tested, in which case the "Asymptomatic" group should be 2:1 female to male. (I'd guess this is the explanation.)

It's a pity they don't break down the data more for us. They have the data (assuming their form is filled out), and they state "To date, no unusual patterns have been detected in the data CDC has received." Maybe, but I'd like to see for myself.

1 comment:

jaed said...

More old women than old men?