Latest RKI figures
How often do vaccination breakthroughs occur? That’s what the statistics say
If a rapid test for the coronavirus is positive, the infection must be confirmed with a professional PCR test
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Cough, fever, headache: Vaccinated people can also contract the coronavirus – albeit less often than unvaccinated people. How many cases of so-called vaccination breakthroughs are there currently?
The seven-day corona incidence is currently spiraling from record high to record high. And the number of new infections reported daily also exceeded the 50,000 threshold this week for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Whether in your own family or among friends and colleagues: now almost every person knows a corona case in their immediate vicinity. Not only the unvaccinated are affected. People who have been vaccinated can also become infected with the virus and develop symptoms, albeit less often. They then flow into the statistics as so-called “vaccination breakthroughs”. But what is that exactly? And how many such cases are there currently?
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) defines breakthroughs in vaccination as follows: These are Covid infections with symptoms in fully vaccinated people who are unequivocally diagnosed, for example with a PCR test. A positive rapid test is not automatically counted as a vaccination breakthrough, which makes sense because the tests are less accurate. If the rapid test works, the result must be confirmed via PCR. If this test also detects the virus, the vaccination breakthrough is recorded in the statistics.
The threads come together at the RKI: The institute publishes the numbers every seven days in its Covid-19 weekly report. In the current issue of Thursday evening the RKI lists 175,188 likely vaccination breakthroughs from the fifth calendar week 2021, of which more than 90,400 cases in the past four weeks. Face it more than 56 million people with full vaccination in Germany.
Vaccination breakthroughs are “expected”
The RKI writes that more vaccination breakthroughs will be observed over time – “as more and more people are generally vaccinated and Sars-CoV-2 is currently spreading again more and more”. The proportion of fully vaccinated people among the reported cases has “increased significantly” in the last few weeks. The majority of the Covid cases transmitted since the fifth calendar week had not been vaccinated.
The vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer, which is by far the most widely used in Germany, accounts for more than 117,367 vaccine breakthroughs. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine reported 21,499 breakthroughs, 14,091 with Astrazeneca and 8,676 with Moderna. So-called cross vaccinations, i.e. Astrazeneca in combination with Biontech / Pfizer or Moderna, accounted for a total of 10,172 vaccination breakthroughs. In some cases, no data are available on the vaccine previously used. That affects 3383 likely vaccine breakthroughs.
The numbers don’t give a 1: 1 indication of which vaccine has the most breakthroughs. To do this, the data must be related to the number of vaccinations administered, which varies greatly depending on the vaccine. It is known, however, that vaccine breakthroughs occur more frequently with the single-use vaccine from Johnson & Johnson than with other vaccines. The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) therefore recommends a booster from four weeks after the J&J injection.
Basically, the RKI assumes an “under-reporting of vaccinated Covid cases”, as it writes in its weekly report. This is due to the fact that complete information on the vaccination status is not available for every reported Covid disease. Data are therefore missing in just under one in five symptomatic cases.
The approval studies already showed that the current corona vaccines do not offer one hundred percent protection against infection. The virus variant Delta also makes vaccination breakthroughs more likely. “Unfortunately, the Delta variant has the property of spreading despite the vaccination,” said Berlin virologist Christian Drosten in a “Zeit” interview this week. After two or three months, the protection against spreading the vaccination begins to decline. This means: Vaccinated people can also become infected with the virus and then carry it to unvaccinated people, for example, who have a higher risk of severe disease.
Many people had already been vaccinated in May or June, so Drosten. These would now gradually lose their protection against proliferation.
High protection against severe gradients
The RKI continues to assume that the corona vaccines are highly effective. For the period of the last four weeks, the institute gives the estimated vaccine effectiveness (protection against infection) for all age groups from 18 years of age at around 72 percent. Serious symptoms after breakthrough vaccination are rare.
Of the Protection against serious illness with hospitalization amounts to approx. 88 percent (age 18-59 years) and approx. 85 percent (age 60 plus) for the same period. Of the Protection from intensive care treatment according to the RKI is approx. 93 percent (age 18-59 years) or approx. 90 percent (age 60 plus). Of the Protection against Covid-19-related death accordingly amounts to approx. 92 percent (age 18-59 years) or approx. 87 percent (age 60 plus).
The proportion of likely vaccine breakthroughs in hospitalized Covid-19 cases is accordingly 5.7 percent in the group of 18 to 59-year-olds from the fifth calendar week (22.7 percent in the past four weeks). In the age group 60 plus, the hospitalization rate after breakthrough vaccinations from the fifth calendar week is 14.1 percent (45.1 percent in the past four weeks). These values must be interpreted together with the vaccination rate achieved. In the 60 plus age group, 85.6 percent are currently fully immunized. Among the 18 to 59 year olds it is 74.0 percent.
In view of the currently high number of cases, there is increasing discussion about measures with which, on the one hand, people can be reached who are still without vaccination protection, and with which, on the other hand, the existing vaccination protection can be refreshed for those who have been completely vaccinated. Studies show that so-called booster vaccinations restore protection against infection and further reduce the risk of severe disease and death. The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) recommends the booster for certain risk groups, including those aged 70 and over. A general booster recommendation should follow shortly.