It is rare and expected, but some people who are fully vaccinated catch COVID-19

‘I: fully vaccinated. I: test positive, ”she tweeted on Saturday. “It happened with the swine flu,” she added, referring to another virus she contracted in high school, despite being vaccinated. “My happiness.”

Graham, who is already feeling better, is one of the approximately 6,000 unfortunate people in the United States who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but who have been diagnosed by epidemiologists as ‘breakthrough cases’. These infections are rare and are completely anticipated; the three vaccines that have been cleared for emergency use have provided robust protection in clinical trials, but they are not perfect.

The Pfizer and Modern vaccines found 95 percent and 94.1 percent of the symptomatic cases in late-stage studies, respectively, while the Johnson & Johnson one-vaccine vaccine found 72 percent of moderate and severe cases in the United States, and 66 percent. percent worldwide. The CDC considers people fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose of Pfizer and Moderna, and two weeks after the J&J fired.

“We have said since the beginning that these vaccines are incredibly effective, but they are not 100 percent, and if there is still such a high amount of COVID in the community, these breakthrough infections are likely to happen,” said Dr. Megan Ranney said. , an emergency physician at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. Ranney did not know how many such cases occurred in her hospital, but said she treated only one patient who was fully vaccinated for the coronavirus.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 75 million people in the United States were completely vaccinated on April 13, and about 5,800 breakthrough cases were reported to the agency. About 29 percent of the cases were asymptomatic, the CDC said. Only 7 percent led to hospitalization; 1 percent of the patients – 74 people – died.

The CDC and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health monitor breakthrough cases and collect viral samples for genomic sequencing to determine which virus strain is responsible. The CDC does not provide a state-by-state breakdown of cases, and the health department could not provide a total of them on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, data from two Massachusetts hospitals that began vaccinating their own employees in December underscore how infrequent infections are after vaccinations.

Dr. Richard Ellison, the epidemiologist at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, said his hospital had fully immunized more than 7,400 employees with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines by April 10. About 80 percent received the Pfizer vaccine and the others received Moderna. About two out of every 1,000 employees later tested positive for COVID-19, he said.

The number of breakthrough cases was in proportion to the overall distribution of the Pfizer and Modern vaccines, Ellison said. Both use the same messenger RNA technology to teach cells to create a portion of the coronavirus and stimulate the immune system to make antibodies.

The Boston Medical Center studied the rate of COVID-19 infections among health workers there who received at least one dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, but did not necessarily need the two shots to be fully vaccinated. A total of 7,109 employees received at least one shot from February 23, according to a study published last month it has yet to be judged peer-to-peer.

Cases of COVID-19 after vaccination occurred in 1.3 percent of workers who received at least one dose and in 0.3 percent who received both doses but did not necessarily reach the two-week mark. after the second dose to be fully vaccinated. According to the study, the infection rate among BMC’s 3,481 healthcare workers who have not yet been vaccinated was 9.5 percent.

All the doctors at teaching hospitals who said they had seen breakthrough cases said they were generally mild. Some patients had no symptoms but were tested because they were exposed to someone with COVID-19, usually a member of them household.

“Although there were these breakthrough cases, there were even fewer of them that were serious enough to require hospitalization, and among those admitted to the hospital, many had other medical problems,” said Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of the Infectious Diseases Division, said. diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “It was not as if they were just getting COVID-19 seriously.”

Vaccines that do test positive for the virus Saxs tend to have lower amounts of viral particles in their bodies than infected people who have not been vaccinated. He did not know how many patients were fully vaccinated with COVID-19 Brigham and Women’s, but said some were employees. He was unaware of deaths.

As expected, vaccinated people appeared to be more vulnerable to COVID-19 capture if they used drugs to suppress their immune systems, Sax said. This includes people receiving immunotherapy for cancer or taking immunosuppressive drugs to prevent their bodies from rejecting transplanted organs.

“According to the Massachusetts General Hospital, a number of breakthrough cases are among both patients and staff,” said Dr. Erica S. Shenoy, co-head of the hospital’s infection control unit. She did not have specific numbers.

As of Monday, the Pfizer and Modern vaccines are responsible for more than 95 percent of the doses distributed in the United States, while the J&J vaccine makes up less than 4 percent. The distribution of the J&J vaccine was halted on April 13 while drug regulators investigated the cases of six women who had rare but severe blood clots after receiving a shot, including one who died.

Despite her fraudulent tweet about capturing COVID-19, Graham, the PR, said she had no doubt she would be much sicker if she did not receive the Pfizer shots.

She feels exhausted, sleeping up to 11 hours instead of her usual 5 hours. But Graham’s fever never rose above 100 degrees and she did not cough. She begins to feel better on Tuesday and compares her symptoms to the mononucleosis she had when she was at Melrose High School. This is nothing compared to the repeated bouts of pneumonia that landed her in the hospital due to her chronic lung condition, she said.

“I give it two compared to the ten pneumonia,” Graham said. ‘I know my symptoms would have been much worse without [the vaccine]. I still feel very grateful. ”

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Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at [email protected].