State not seeing more COVID breakthrough cases than expected
Jun 2, 2021, 5:01 PM | Updated: Jun 3, 2021, 6:43 am
A vaccine clinic at a local Fred Meyer pharmacy. (MyNorthwest photo)
(MyNorthwest photo)
Unvaccinated seniors are 13 times more likely than vaccinated seniors to be hospitalized with COVID-19 — and that number is up to 21 times for middle-aged adults — but that still means a small percentage of people are getting COVID despite having had the shot.
State epidemiologist Dr. Scott Lindquist says some of these cases, known as breakthrough cases, were expected, since no vaccine is 100% foolproof. A vaccine with around 95% efficacy in clinical trials, such as Pfizer or Moderna, will still leave you with a 5% chance of coming down with COVID if you are exposed.
“We’re seeing what is expected given the vaccine efficacy. … We’re not seeing anything above what is expected,” Lindquist said.
The vaccine does, however, usually ensure that if you are one of those unlucky few, your symptoms will be milder, or perhaps even non-existent.
State reports 102 COVID infections in fully-vaccinated people
“About 75% of these people have symptoms, so 25% are without symptoms that are picked up during routine testing of outbreaks,” Lindquist said. “So we’re picking up quite a bit of breakthroughs through our aggressive outbreak testing.”
The other piece of good news is that there does not appear to be one extremely vaccine-resistant variant standing out among the rest.
“It looks roughly like the variants from all positives (all COVID cases),” Lindquist said. “We’re not seeing, basically, a predominance of one variant breaking through the vaccine.”
He added that breakthrough cases don’t appear to be more prevalent in any particular age group.
Those who do have a tougher time with breakthrough cases, such as the 9% who are hospitalized, tend to be elderly.
“The majority of these are older and they have underlying health conditions from age, so that is not unexpected,” Lindquist said.
Lindquist pointed out that while Washington does not have vastly more breakthrough cases than other states, we are one of the top three states for genotyping.
“We’re being very aggressive about testing and looking for it, and we are finding what we expect,” Lindquist said. “We don’t appear to be out of the ordinary.”
The bottom line, he said, is that breakthrough cases are a rarity, so they should not stop anyone from getting the vaccine. On the contrary, the more people who are immune — or, at least 95% immune — thanks to the vaccine, the less of a chance of you have of ever coming into contact with COVID-19 and becoming a breakthrough statistic yourself.
