Swiss health ministry data shows vaccinated people seldom hit by COVID-19

By John Miller

ZURICH, June 24 (Reuters) - Switzerland's move to allow
large public events with 10,000-plus people from Saturday comes
as government data appears to show vaccines are helping control
new infections that are mostly hitting people who remain
unprotected.

Only 209 of 180,000 new infections recorded in Switzerland
between Jan. 27 and June 21 were in people fully vaccinated with
shots from Moderna or Pfizer and Germany's
BioNTech, according to Swiss Federal Health Ministry
data provided to Reuters on Thursday.

The ministry said the vast majority of these so-called
breakthrough cases -- infections of fully vaccinated people --
that were studied using genetic sequencing involved the Alpha
variant, first recorded in Britain and which began spreading in
Switzerland around the new year.

Just a single breakthrough infection has been reported for
the more infectious Delta variant, first documented in India and
now causing concern globally as it fast becomes the dominant
variant.

"There is currently no evidence that the Delta variant leads
to more vaccine breakthroughs than Alpha," a Health Ministry
spokesman said.

However there is emerging, and sometimes conflicting, data
regarding the Delta variant's threat.

One study, from Scotland, indicated the Delta variant may
double hospitalization risk.

In another, Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines were
judged effective against the variant, while yet another https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-637724/v1
from a U.K. and Indian group concluded Delta's rapid growth was
"most likely explained by a combination of increased
transmissibility and immune evasion" including vaccine escape.

England, which has delayed fully reopening as cases rise
despite high vaccination rates, has trimmed the recommended gap
between first and second COVID-19 shots to eight weeks from 12
for some groups of the population, because of the fast-spreading
Delta variant and data showing protection is much higher after
the second dose.

In Switzerland, 2.6 million of its 8.6-million-person
population have received two doses of mRNA vaccines from Moderna
and Pfizer, the only two available in the country.

Another 1.5 million people have received a single shot and
are awaiting a booster.
(Reporting by John Miller in Zurich, Josephine Mason in London
and Christine Soares in New York, Editing by William Maclean)