The novel coronavirus isn’t gone. It’s still circulating throughout the country, infecting the fully vaccinated and the unvaccinated. So should we expect to see breakthrough cases?
How many breakthrough COVID-19 cases should there be?
Dr. Esther Choo, professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, said on Yahoo Finance Live that we should expect to see a high amount of breakthrough COVID-19 cases as the delta variant spreads. The vaccine isn’t 100% effective, after all.
- “There’s a lot of talk about how people are getting COVID anyway, even though they’re vaccinated, and that is true and that is expected because there’s no vaccine that’s 100% all the time,” Choo told Yahoo Finance Live.
But, Choo said, these cases aren’t leading to severe illness, which is helping people stay safe from the virus’ deadlier symptoms.
- “So we are seeing these breakthrough cases,” she said. “Many of them are asymptomatic, totally without symptoms, and they’re getting tested as part of contact tracing or other screening so that they can go on to certain activities or they have very mild symptoms.”
Are the COVID-19 vaccines still working?
Yes, as far as we know. The Wall Street Journal published a new analysis piece that looked at data from a new United Kingdom study that showed the coronavirus vaccines have, for the most part, stopped severe illness from the coronavirus amid the delta variant surge.
- “The vaccines are as good as first heralded, even against new variants,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “That unvaccinated people are still being hospitalized underscores the continuing need to get as many people vaccinated as possible.”
In Israel — one of the most vaccinated countries in the world — the vaccines have been working, as there was only one serious COVID-19 patient in the country who was fully vaccinated and under 60 years old, according to The Times of Israel. However, Israel's health experts are worried the vaccine’s effectiveness might be lower than what’s been reported so far.