DHSS adds breakthrough infection data to COVID-19 dashboard

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) statewide COVID-19 dashboard is publishing new data that it finds from “breakthrough infections.”

DHSS reports the vaccine remains a strong defense against the virus, and that older age and health co-morbidities are strongly correlated with the “breakthrough infections.”

According to DHSS and the Missouri Hospital Association's (MHA) research, people infected with the coronavirus after being fully vaccinated are termed a breakthrough infection and are still relatively rare.

According to the dashboard, 2% of fully vaccinated people in Missouri developed a breakthrough infection. That's two out of every 100 fully vaccinated Missourians. 87 out of every 100 COVID-19 cases in Missouri occurred in unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people.

More than 6,300 individuals have tested positive for the virus, recovered, and then tested positive again more than 90 days later.

Among fully vaccinated Missourians, 0.02% have died from COVID-19 which is 654 of the more than three million people that have gotten vaccinated.

While breakthrough infections have resulted in hospitalization or death, DHSS says it is largely among people who through a combination of age and illness have some health condition.

Health experts say booster doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna is effective in reducing viral loads of breakthrough infections.