Raising the Alarm Bells on “breakthrough infections” or when Fully Vaccinated Individuals Test Positive for COVID

 the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, there have been growing levels of concern and conversation surrounding “breakthrough infections,” which are confirmed SARS-CoV-2-positive cases in fully vaccinated individuals. While these cases are still comparatively rare among the larger COVID-19 case burden, experts and the public alike are worried about implications for vaccinated individuals. Most of the recorded breakthrough cases are linked to the Delta variant of concern, which is currently responsible for nearly all new cases in the United States. Encouragingly, a small percentage of breakthrough cases have resulted in severe manifestations of COVID-19 that needed hospitalization.

While the primary objective of vaccination—preventing severe COVID-19 or death—seems to be holding against the Delta variant, the secondary goal of preventing person-to-person transmission may not be as strong against Delta infections as for other variants or wild-type SARS-CoV-2. Some preliminary studies have found that vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections can exhibit similar viral loads (measured in PCR Ct values) as those in infected unvaccinated individuals. While higher viral loads can be correlated with the amount of virus shed during normal person-to-person interactions, another preprint study found that high viral load did not necessarily result in shed infectious viral particles. More research is needed to understand the risk of transmission from breakthrough cases to both vaccinated and unvaccinated persons and to understand the viral dynamics in the immune systems of vaccinated individuals. Experts maintain that, given the current evidence, vaccination remains the best tool in defeating SARS-CoV-2 and the Delta variant .