Only 0.34% of fully vaxxed in Mumbai got infection: BMC

MUMBAI: Only 7,057 Mumbaikars got Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated, according to data released by the BMC health department. This figure was computed from the civic ward-level Covid war room reports when the number of vaccinated people in Mumbai stood at 20 lakh as against 24.89 lakh on Monday evening.

“This works out to 0.34% of the fully vaccinated people getting breakthrough Covid infection,” said BMC executive health officer Dr Mangala Gomare on Monday. The definition of breakthrough infections is when an illness affects a person despite him/her being vaccinated against it.

Out of the 7,057 who got breakthrough Covid-19 infection, 52% or 3,694 were senior citizens over 60 years of age. “However, the infected 60-plus group accounted for only 0.5% of the fully vaccinated senior citizens in the city so far,” said Dr Gomare. Senior citizens have emerged as the most vulnerable group in the Covid-19 pandemic so far, both in terms of morbidity and mortality. Another 2,156 (0.3%) were in the 44-59 age-group and the remaining 1,207 (0.2%) were in the 18-44 age-group, Dr Gomare added.

While there has been widespread discussion and fear about new Covid variants affecting fully vaccinated people, BMC officials said that the new data showed the vaccine offers protection to the majority. “Vaccines don’t offer 100% protection against a disease, and this statistic is indicative of this,” said a senior civic hospital doctor.

Dr Shashank Joshi, who is a member of the state government’s task force on Covid-19, said that breakthrough infections are low. “The Mumbai data seems to be no different from that emerging from across the world. Global data has shown that vaccines offer protection against death and severity of the disease,” said Dr Joshi.

However, he said the BMC should give further details about how many among these 7,057 had severe disease and needed hospitalisation.