Newly obtained files show U.S. officials knew of more than five million COVID-19 cases in the vaccinated.
More than five million COVID-19 cases occurred in vaccinated people in 2021, according to U.S. government files obtained by The Epoch Times.
One million vaccinated people tested positive for COVID-19 by September 2021, and another four million tested positive by the end of the year, according to the internal files.
While so-called breakthrough cases are already a known phenomenon—starting within days of the first shots being rolled out—the files, obtained from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), show the amount of vaccine failure was much higher than previously known.
The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.
Some Cases Disclosed
The CDC publicly disclosed numbers of breakthrough cases in early 2021. The public health agency said that 10,262 cases were identified through April 30 of that year. But after that, the CDC stopped listing many of the cases.
“CDC transitioned from monitoring all reported COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections to investigating only those among patients who are hospitalized or die, thereby focusing on the cases of highest clinical and public health significance,” the agency said at the time.
The new files show that many of the breakthrough cases happened among the “fully vaccinated,” or people who tested positive at least 14 days after completing a primary series. Approximately 4.5 million cases came among that population, including more than half a million in September 2021 alone.
The CDC quietly posted the data online in October 2022. The CDC says data come from 32 jurisdictions, including Arkansas, California, and New York City.
Another 883,222 cases were identified among the “partially vaccinated,” or people who received at least one shot but did not meet the definition of fully vaccinated.
The cases among the partially vaccinated were never posted online
Some were reported by The Epoch Times in October, but the new files provide cases from nine months in 2021.
Cases among the partially vaccinated that occurred in December 2020, January 2021, February 2021, or March 2021 were not included in the files, which were acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
By Zachary Stieber
