No vaccine is perfect No vaccine is perfect “That is the reason why everybody should get vaccinated-because even if you are immunosuppressed and get a breakthrough infection, that infection would be mild as compared to a regular infection.” So, it’s still a concern.”Īdditionally, “what you’re seeing predominantly is 80% of the patients who have the Omicron variant are unvaccinated and are needing hospitalization,” he said. But then “1% to 2% of those hospitalized from breakthrough infections may still die, unfortunately. “For 90% of the patients, the breakthrough infection would be mild, but for 10% of the patients, they would still require hospitalization,” said Dr. “The severity of the symptoms of these COVID breakthrough infection cases would be milder, but in certain patients you may still need all the aggressive care that we provide to a person who is unimmunized who gets a COVID infection.” “There are about 50% to 60% of the patients who would have some symptoms, but are mild and still may not need hospitalization,” he added. “According to the data, reported by CDC and other publications, it seems like around 25% to 30% of the patients who have had breakthrough infections are completely asymptomatic.

“Because people who are vaccinated have had some immunity, some antibodies, a majority of these breakthrough cases are going to be asymptomatic or mild,” said Dr. Most breakthrough infections are mild Most breakthrough infections are mild Sanghavi-medical director of the medical intensivist unit at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida-took time to discuss what doctors wish patients knew about COVID-19 breakthrough infections. While there is still more that physicians and scientists have to learn about this fast-moving topic, Dr. That means two weeks after the second shot of Moderna or Pfizer mRNA vaccines, or two weeks after the one-shot J&J COVID-19 vaccine. The agency defines a breakthrough COVID-19 infection as “a small percentage of fully vaccinated persons” who “will still get COVID-19 if they are exposed to the virus that causes it.” To that end, these vaccine breakthrough cases mean that “while people who have been vaccinated are much less likely to get sick, it will still happen in some cases.”Ī breakthrough case is defined as “detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen in respiratory specimen collected from a person 14 days after receipt of all recommended doses” of one of the three vaccines authorized in the U.S., said AMA member Devang Sanghavi, MD. But since no vaccine is perfect, it is expected that we will see COVID-19 breakthrough infections. Even as new COVID-19 variants appear, vaccines continue to hold their ground. Nevertheless, the fact remains that getting vaccinated is effective in preventing people from getting severely ill or dying from the disease. is seeing more COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections. But with the highly transmissible Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 spreading rapidly, the U.S.

The three COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States-from Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson (J&J)-are doing exactly what they were meant to do: protect against severe illness and hospitalization.

Sick after vaccine