It’s rare and expected, but some fully vaccinated people will get COVID-19

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“Me: fully vaccinated. Me: test positive, ”she tweeted Saturday. “This happened with swine flu,” she added, referring to another virus she caught in high school despite being vaccinated. “My luck.”

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

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

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

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

The CDC and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health are monitoring breakthrough cases and collecting viral samples for genomic sequencing to determine which viral strain was responsible. The CDC doesn’t provide a breakdown of cases by state, and the state health department couldn’t give a total on Tuesday.

Nonetheless, data from two Massachusetts hospitals that began vaccinating their own employees in December underscores the rarity of infections after vaccinations.

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

The number of breakthrough cases was proportional to the general distribution of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Ellison said. Both use the same messenger RNA technology to teach cells to make part of the coronavirus and stimulate the immune system to make antibodies.

Boston Medical Center studied the rates of COVID-19 infections among health professionals out there who received at least one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, but not necessarily the two injections needed to be fully vaccinated. According to a study published last month, a total of 7,109 workers received at least one injection on Feb. 23 that has yet to be assessed by colleagues.

Post-vaccination COVID-19 cases occurred in 1.3 percent of workers who received at least one dose and 0.3 percent who received both doses but not necessarily reached the two-week limit after the second dose to be fully inoculated. The infection rate among 3,481 BMC health workers who had not yet been vaccinated was much higher, according to the study, 9.5 percent.

All of the doctors in teaching hospitals who reported seeing 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.

“While there have been these breakthrough cases, fewer were serious enough to require hospitalization, and among those hospitalized, many had multiple other medical problems,” says Dr. Paul Sax, Clinical Director of the Infectious Diseases Department. diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “It wasn’t like they just got severe COVID-19.”

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

As expected, vaccinated people seemed more vulnerable to COVID-19 if they took drugs to suppress their immune systems, Sax said. That includes people who are receiving cancer immunotherapy or taking immunosuppressants to prevent their bodies from rejecting transplanted organs.

Massachusetts General Hospital has also “seen a number of breakthrough cases among both patients and employees,” said Dr. Erica S. Shenoy, associate chief of the hospital’s infection control department. She had no specific numbers.

The vaccines against Pfizer and Moderna from Monday accounts for more than 95 percent of the doses distributed in the United States, while the J&J vaccine makes up less than 4 percent. Distribution of the J&J vaccine was interrupted on April 13, while drug regulators examined the cases of six women who developed rare but serious blood clots after receiving an injection, including one who died.

Despite her mournful tweet about the COVID-19 being caught, Graham, the public relations manager, said she has no doubts she would be much sicker had she not received Pfizer’s shots.

She felt exhausted and slept until 11am instead of her usual 5am. But Graham’s fever never went above 100 degrees and she hasn’t coughed. She started to feel better on Tuesday, comparing her symptoms to the mononucleosis she had when she went to Melrose High School. It’s nothing compared to the repeated bouts of pneumonia that landed her in the hospital as a result of her chronic lung condition, she said.

“I’d give it a two compared to the ten with pneumonia,” Graham said. ‘I know my symptoms are without [the vaccine]. I still feel very grateful. “

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at [email protected].

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