Photo credit: UPMC Media Relations – May 21, 2021
BY: Caroline Machiraju
HARRISBURG, Pa. – While mainstream media is continuing its barrage of fire-screaming headlines and pushing the vaccine, Harrisburg100 is investigating the elusive “breakthrough” Covid data, via a public records request issued to the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH), while also applying pressure to area health systems.
The DOH states they are only sharing Covid “breakthrough” hospitalizations that are “self-reported” by hospitals at this time, per their Post-Vaccination Data webpage. DOH pledges they will: “continue to work with hospitals to improve the validity and completion of data submitted.”
Here’s a sampling on what the area health systems publicly report on their Covid dashboards:
Penn State Health: Dashboard
UPMC: None. No Covid dashboard on website at this time. (This is unusual, given that UPMC has been vocal in its messaging with news conferences and commentary in local news media, to push the vaccine, even recommending it for children, whose hospitalization rate for Covid is still less than 1%, per the American Academy of Pediatrics and the death rate for children is less than .01%.)
WellSpan Health: Dashboard (Covid admissions, but no breakthrough data, as of Sept. 22)
DOH cautions that if the “incidence or severity of post-vaccination cases increases, (breakthroughs) could be a signal of reduced protection against a variant.”
Harrisburg100 has received no comment from – PennStateHealth, UPMC and WellSpan – on whether they are seeing any new “variants” at their hospitals at this time.
This is a continuation of coverage on Covid “breakthroughs” in Pennsylvania. Harrisburg100 recently featured a story on the DOH’s news pitch to present breakthroughs as being highly rare, using an oversized sample size of cases (cumulative data), dating back to Jan. 1, resulting in a misrepresentation of how many “breakthrough” cases are now appearing in hospitals and causing deaths.
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