More than 140 people in Houston have tested positive for COVID-19 more than two weeks after being fully vaccinated against the virus that causes the disease, health experts in the Texas city confirmed.
The data of the potential so-called vaccine breakthrough cases date back to January, when the first wave of recipients received a full vaccination. Breakthrough cases refer to COVID-19 cases that appear in people more than two weeks after they have been fully vaccinated against the virus.
COVID-19 is caused by the CCP virus, commonly referred to as the novel coronavirus, which originated in China in late 2019.
Dr. David Persse, the city’s chief medical officer, said residents becoming infected after being fully vaccinated is “not unexpected” because the shot doesn’t grant recipients 100 percent immunity.
“This vaccine is not dissimilar from other vaccines in that it gives you some level of protection, but no vaccine is 100 percent effective,” Persse said.
“While tens of hundreds of thousands have been vaccinated, in a community that still has viral spread, it’s not too big of a surprise there are a small number of people who have become infected.”
None of the Houstonians who tested positive for COVID-19 after receiving the shot required hospitalization, Persse said, saying symptoms are usually very mild with vaccinated people testing positive compared to unvaccinated people.
According to U.S. drug regulators, Pfizer’s vaccine is 95 percent effective in preventing infection of the CCP virus. Moderna’s was shown in a clinical trial to be 94.1 percent effective, while Johnson & Johnson’s was 66.9 percent effective. The percentages are for two weeks after the final vaccination.
A number of U.S. states have recently seen similar infections among Americans who are fully vaccinated, including Idaho, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, South Carolina, and Washington.
“Finding evidence of vaccine breakthrough cases reminds us that, even if you have been vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask, practice socially distancing, and wash your hands to prevent spreading COVID-19 to others who have not been vaccinated,” Washington Secretary of Health Umair Shah said in a statement.
“I think the important thing is to look at what the denominator of vaccinated people is, because it is very likely—and what we’re hearing at least indirectly, and we’re certainly going to be confirming that—that that number of individuals who were breakthrough infections is not at all incompatible with a 90-plus percent vaccine efficacy. So, I don’t think that there needs to be concern about any shift or change in the efficacy of the vaccine,” Fauci said.
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