On January 27, 2021 the CDC (in an email obtained under Freedom of Information) defined a COVID-19 “vaccine breakthrough case” as

“a patient who has SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen detected on a respiratory specimen collected [greater than or equal to] 7 days after completing the primary series of an FDA-authorized SARS-CoV-2 vaccine” [1, 2]

Though in retrospect, we learn CDC’s Dr Fisher as early as December 21, 2020, only 7 days after rollout begins, he was directed by a superior “to start working on a protocol to evaluate COVID vaccine failures or breakthrough cases.”  Also on January 30, 2021, CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, began planting concern about virus variants being a “growing threat” of escaping the protection of vaccines.

On January 27, 2021 at the CDC a 1-page internal document about “vaccine failure” was being distributed by CDC medical officer Dr. Thomas Clark the Epoch Times reveals, but under FOIA it is fully redacted.

On February 2, 2021 in an email, the CDC’s Vaccine Breakthrough Case Investigation Team, led by Dr Fisher and part of the COVID-19 Vaccine Taskforce, alters the definition of a breakthough case to be least 14 days post the completion of a primary dose series of injections.  This instantly eliminates cases and provides an inflated and misleading view of vaccine effectiveness. [3]

“A US. resident who has SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen detected on a respiratory specimen collected [greater than or equal to] 14 days after completing the primary series of an FDA-authorized COVID-19 Vaccine.”

On February 4, 2021 the CDC communicated with US States on how to count vaccine breakthrough cases and which to exclude!

It wasn’t until April 15, 2021 that the CDC began reporting vaccine Breakthrough Cases, which included some who were hospitalised and died. [4, 5]

On May 1, 2021 the ” CDC transitioned from monitoring all reported vaccine breakthrough cases to focus on identifying and investigating only hospitalized or fatal cases due to any cause”. [6, 7]

In an email to the Epoch Times it was claimed the “CDC made the change to the definition of a breakthrough infection time period due to the most current data that showed that the 14-day period was required for an effective antibody response to the vaccines.”  At this point the CDC are assuming antibody production is equivalent to “preventing infection”, a theory.  They claimed to have wanted to “eliminate cases where exposure [to the virus] happened before the vaccination response [antibody production] would be effective.”

As Dr Harvey Risch points out to Epoch Times, “If the vaccines don’t work for the first 7 or 14 days or increase risk of getting COVID-19 during that period, that is part of what happens when they [the mass vaccination program] are deployed in a population.”

Dr Jay Bhattacharya told The Epoch Times in an email, the CDC should have warned “recently vaccinated vulnerable older people that they were at higher risk for being infected during that period.”