From ABC News:
CDC mask decision followed stunning findings from Cape Cod beach outbreak
A group of vaccinated beachgoers changed our knowledge of the delta variant.
ByAnne Flaherty and Arielle Mitropoulos
July 29, 2021, 1:49 PMA week after the crowds descended upon Provincetown, Massachusetts, to celebrate the Fourth of July — the holiday President Joe Biden hoped would mark the nation’s liberation from COVID-19 — the manager of the Cape Cod beach town said he was aware of “a handful of positive COVID cases among folks” who spent time there. …
But within weeks, health officials seemed to be on to something much bigger. The outbreak quickly grew to the hundreds and most of them appeared to be vaccinated.
As of Thursday, 882 people were tied to the Provincetown outbreak. Among those living in Massachusetts, 74% of them were fully immunized, yet officials said the vast majority were also reporting symptoms. Seven people were reported hospitalized.
That’s a low hospitalization rate, although I’m not sure if that’s just those from Massachusetts. Provincetown attracts many from outside the state: e.g., Andrew Sullivan flies in each summer.
The initial findings of the investigation led by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seemed to have huge implications.
Before Provincetown, health officials had been operating under the assumption that it was extraordinarily rare for a vaccinated person to become infected with the virus. And if they did, they probably wouldn’t end up passing it on to others, such as children too young to qualify for the vaccine or people who were medically vulnerable.
The idea that vaccines halt transmission of the virus was largely behind the CDC’s decision in May suggesting vaccinated people could safely go without their masks indoors and in crowds, even if others were unvaccinated.
But that assumption had been based on studies of earlier versions of the virus. Delta was known for its “hyper-transmissibility,” or as one former White House adviser put it “COVID on steroids.”
Strikingly, a three-letter word missing from this long article about Provincetown is “gay.” Provincetown is perhaps the gayest place in America. From KALW Public Media in the SF Bay Area:
Provincetown – The Gayest Little City in the World
KALW | By Eric Jansen
Published April 16, 2015 at 9:50 AM PDT
But you’re never supposed to mention anything involving gays transmitting infections while partying. After all, we now know that the AIDS epidemic in America was the fault of Ronald and, especially, Nancy Reagan, not the people who infected other people. Follow the Science!
