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As the U.K. eased a months-long lockdown this week and eager crowds flocked to pubs and hair salons health officials there called their outlier approach to COVID-19 vaccination a success.
Britain has continued to stretch out the interval between first and second doses of COVID-19 vaccines for up to 12 weeks in order to prioritize first doses for as many people as possible. Initially, the move was made in response to a dramatic uptick in cases at the end of December and into January spurred by the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant.
But now, new cases and hospitalizations have continued to hold at levels not seen since last summer, seemingly a nod to how well the strategy has worked thus far.
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arrow People stand in line to get a COVID-19 vaccine at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. Timothy A Clary/AP/Shutterstock
Recent reports of vaccinated people being diagnosed with COVID-19 have caused alarm in places like Michigan, where a recent headline blared: “246 vaccinated residents diagnosed with COVID; 3 dead.” Breakthrough infections cases where the coronavirus takes hold in a fully inoculated person will always raise worries about whether the vaccines are actually working. And more than 200 incidents in a place where the variants are surging? Yikes.
But without the appropriate context, statistics can breed misconceptions or even deceive. When that headline ran, the total number of fully vaccinated Michiganders at the time was approximately 1.5 million. Recording 246 breakthrough infections among this enormous group would mean the COVID vaccines are actually performing
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