Who Contracted Covid-19 in NC in January? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Jon Sanders.

    Over 40% of new Covid-19 cases in North Carolina in the month of January were to fully vaccinated* individuals. Meanwhile, 52% of cases were to unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated* individuals, while 7% were to people who had prior Covid infections.

    The graph below shows how lab-confirmed Covid-19 infections across January break down according to three categories: reinfections, post-vaccination* cases, and cases to unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated* individuals. Take note that this compilation does not differentiate among cases according to severity.

    Based on the dates of DHHS reports, these data basically cover the month of January (January 1-29). For more discussion, consult this research brief on the numbers from December, with a discussion of the worsening problem of post-vaccination infections.

    Who Is Contracting Covid-19 in NC? Cases from Jan. 1-29


    Here are the raw numbers behind the graph:

• Total cases by specimen date: 685,078
• Cases to unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated* individuals: 357,884 (52.2%)
• Post-vaccination* infections: 278,361 (40.6%)
• Reinfections: 48,833 (7.1%)

    * Note

    We don't know how many cases occurred to individuals with only one of two injections or within two weeks of receiving the second injection. DHHS does not report those data. Suffice to say that some proportion of that 52.2% of "unvaccinated" has received a Covid-19 vaccination, but how big that population is, we can't say.

    Because of how the "unvaccinated" are defined bureaucratically as opposed to plain speaking, the category of "unvaccinated" must be properly stated "unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated individuals." Taking cues from the CDC, DHHS defines someone as "unvaccinated" if the person has received only one of two injections or if the person is within two weeks of receiving the second injection.

    Again, that means that some unknown proportion of cases has occurred to people in definitional limbo somewhere between the first injection and 13 days after receiving the second one. Precision requires they be at least acknowledged.