TrialSite recently highlighted the historically horrific consequences that can derive from the fallacious game of pitting people against each other. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, this comes down to the “vaccinated” versus the “unvaccinated” as public health authorities and supportive governments in the West put up various systems to discriminate as a means of encouraging universal vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. This paradigm makes more sense if the current vaccine products on the market can stop viral transmission. However, mounting data indicate that they do not and that, as Prof. Dr. Günter Kamp, a German specialist in hygiene and environmental medicine from the University of Greifswald articulates, even more forcefully COVID-19 vaccinated individuals increasingly exhibit ever greater “epidemiological relevance.”

Prof. Dr. Kamp produces another important article published in The Lancet Regional Health Europe, first pointing to data from the UK indicating that the vaccinated turn out to be just as contagious as the unvaccinated in one real-world data set. This claim is, of course, supported by several studies now.

Real World Findings

Dr. Prof. Kamp refers to one study recently published in The Lancet titled “Community transmission and viral load kinetics of the SARs-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study” led by researchers from the UK’s National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Respiratory Infections and the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London.

In this study, Kampf shares the focus on the rate of secondary attacks among household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated cases versus household contacts exposed to unvaccinated cases. (25% for vaccinated versus 23% for unvaccinated). Moreover, the UK study team reported that 12 of 31 SARS-CoV-2 infections in those fully vaccinated household contacts (39%) originated “… from fully vaccinated epidemiologically linked index cases.”

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Moreover, Kampf summarizes the NIHR and Imperial College of London investigator-led study, sharing that “Peak viral load did not differ by vaccination status or variant type.” Concerning Germany, Kamp produces some bombshell data via this peer-reviewed, prominent publication.

Troubling German Data

Kamp reports that in Germany, those fully vaccinated people who succumb to SARS-CoV-2 infection fall in the “breakthrough infection” category, which has been tracked since July 21, 2021. What does the data reveal? First, we must emphasize this study data originates from a high profile academic medical center in Germany: the Robert Koch-Institut, Weekly Report for COVID-19:

CohortBreakthrough Infection Rate as of July 21, 2021Breakthrough Infection Rate as of October 217Age 60+16.9%58.9%

The University of Greifswald Professor emphasizes clearly from the numbers, “This proportion is increasing week by week.” Kampf continues, saying that the data in both the UK and Germany showcase “clear evidence of the increasing relevance of the fully vaccinated as a possible source of transmission.”

Back to the UK

Kamp brings the reader back to the UK, discussing the trends surfacing between weeks 39 and 42. He notes that of the population 60 years of age and up for this duration, 100,160 COVID-19 cases were reported. 89, 821 of these cases occurred among the fully vaccinated, representing a staggering rate of 89.7% with just 3,395 among the unvaccinated (3.4%). Of course, there were far less unvaccinated at this point, which partially helps to explain the discrepancy reported by the UK Health Security Agency: COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report.

Conclusion

Kampf goes on to explain a few other scenarios, including data points in Israel and in America. In the latter, he points out that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pointed out that four of the top five counties with the greatest proportion of vaccinated populations (99.9-84.3%) were classified as “high” transmission countries.

The U.S. data was made possible by research undertaken by SV Subramanian, A. Kumar titled “Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States.”

TrialSite has tracked highly vaccinated nations and regions within nations and found similar outcomes—the most recent, of course, was 100% vaccinated Gibraltar with record SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks.

The implications of these unfolding data patterns cannot be underestimated. Prof. Dr. Kamp is correct that increasingly the vaccinated become an ever more epidemiologically relevant cohort.

Lead Research/Investigator

Prof. Dr. Günter Kamp, a German specialist in hygiene and environmental medicine from University of Greifswald articulates