South Dakota sees the country's largest two-week COVID surge

[wnylib]

34. I have been having doubts about

the stats in my western NY county. The numbers just don't add up. I check them daily because we are in the "substantial" category.

47% of the population is vaccinated. There are 7 people hospitalized. We are consistently getting around 20 new cases per day. Yet, day after day, the total of active cases increases by only 3 or 4. How can this be? We get numbers like 115 total active cases, 23 new cases, and a new active case total of 119. But 115 plus 23 should yield a total of 138 active cases.

At first I thought it meant that the new cases included asymptomatic people who would not be included in active cases. But when this happens day after day after day it becomes impossible to believe because it would mean that around 75% or more new cases are asymptomatic. In a county of only 47% vaccinated people.

It would mean that an impossibly high number of unvaccinated people are asymptomatic. Normally unvaccinated asymptomatic infections would be around 30% at most, and that was with the alpha variant. There should be more, not less symptomatic people with delta.

So, does it mean that there is an abnormally high number of breakthrough infections among vaccinated people, who would then have no symptoms or only mild ones that go away in a day or two? If so, that's a breakthrough rate of over 75%.

Nobody here wears masks, so it could be spreading by both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

None of it adds up.