CDC: About 5,800 Fully Vaccinated People Have Tested Positive For COVID-19
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - It is possible to catch COVID-19 even after full vaccination.
"My symptoms were very mild," says Daniel Deaton.
As a family medicine resident physician, Deaton became fully immunized in January. His wife was not in a priority group.
In February, they were both exposed to someone who tested positive. His wife got sick with COVID first, then Daniel.
"Fever, chills, body aches. A little bit of a cough, that sort of thing, only lasted about two days," he describes. "Unfortunately, my poor wife had about two weeks of symptoms, having not been vaccinated."
According to the CDC, about 5,800 out of 77 million fully vaccinated people have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Seven percent of those who have been infected have been hospitalized and 74 have died.
Even though in his own family medicine practice he has not had a case, Dr. Sunjay Mannan is not surprised by these figures. "As we know, the vaccinations are not 100%."
"Thirty percent of those breakthrough cases were asymptomatic, so they were preoperative physicals, person went in for a test and they tested positive," he adds.
He points out as millions of people are vaccinated, statistically, there will be breakthrough cases.
"The breakthrough cases, they're studying those as well, to see are those variants, is it a specific group of people that are vaccinated that are having these cases," he says.
Daniel's experience makes him consider the potential of asymptomatic transmission.
"I do worry because I know a lot of employers have policies saying if you're vaccinated, it doesn't matter if you've had a serious exposure, still come to work until you become symptomatic. I am worried people are going to get exposed after being vaccinated or they'll expose people who haven't had the chance to have a vaccine yet," he says.
Dr. Mannan agrees.
"If you have someone who isn't vaccinated and is hanging out with a group of people who are vaccinated, but asymptomatic, it could lead to disease," says Dr. Mannan.
And even though Daniel got sick despite the vaccine, he doesn't feel let down.
"After seeing my wife struggle for two weeks, develop shortness of breath, lose her taste and smell, I had, like I said, a mild flu or a bad cold, somewhere between the two," he says, "I felt like it was very much worthwhile."
Daniel would do it again a hundred times.
