What's happening with breakthrough cases?

... First, the new data we got is total case counts by vaccination status. Unfortunately, it's still weekly and a month out of date, so it doesn't tell us anything about what's happening now. But it does tell us some interesting things.

40 percent of COVID-19 deaths are among the vaccinated?

But remember that something like 75 percent of all COVID-19 deaths right now happen to seniors, of whom just under 92 percent were fully vaccinated a month ago.

... roughly 8 percent of seniors who were unvaccinated accounted for 67 percent of all deaths. The other 92 percent accounted for the other third.

... [all ages] The unvaccinated have been about four times more likely to get a COVID-19 case, and about 16 times more likely to be hospitalized or die.

Also extremely importantly, these ratios have been largely flat for months. The relative case prevalence did take a dive in June and July, as the delta variant took hold in Minnesota, but has been flat since then. This matters since there has been some evidence that vaccine effectiveness can fade with time. That may very well be true, but we're not seeing it in these numbers.

Adjusted for age, unvaccinated Minnesotans have been about four times more likely to get COVID-19 than those who’ve been vaccinated — and 16 times more likely to be hospitalized or die from it.

The shots, of course, don’t insulate people completely from getting COVID-19.

Minnesota Health Department figures released Friday show about 40 percent of Minnesota’s COVID-19 cases among people 12 or older were breakthroughs — people previously inoculated — as of a month ago, the most recent available data.

The share of cases, hospitalizations and deaths that are breakthroughs has risen steadily in recent months. However, health officials say this isn’t surprising or even alarming.

More than 70 percent of Minnesotans 12 or older are fully vaccinated, which means as the disease has spread in recent months the virus has encountered plenty of vaccinated people.