The first U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of advanced coronavirus infections in fully vaccinated people show that these infections are very rare, Dr. Kawsar Talaat, an infectious disease doctor and assistant professor at the CNN, told CNN on Thursday. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. . He said it actually underscores the urgency of vaccinating more people against Covid-19.
The likelihood of these “very rare” infections depends on the amount of virus circulating within a community, Talaat said. As more people are fully vaccinated, there will be fewer circulating viruses and fewer opportunities for anyone who is exposed.
“This is the full point of reaching herd immunity,” he said. “Because once we get to a point where enough people in the community are vaccinated, then if someone develops Covid in that community, the people around them are protected and it’s much harder for that person to spread the virus to someone else. and therefore the transmission stops “.
About 77 million people in the United States have been completely vaccinated. According to data released Wednesday on CNN, CDC said 5,800 advanced cases have been reported so far, although there is a delay in notification. Among the reported cases, 396 were hospitalized and 74 died. The CDC also said 29% were asymptomatic.
The CDC said it is monitoring cases reported “by grouping by patient demographics, geographic location, time since vaccination, vaccine type or batch number and SARS-CoV-2 lineage,” and so far no they have identified unexpected patterns.
Talaat said that, in general, advanced infections are usually much milder than cases seen in unvaccinated people.
“It’s important to realize how many lives have already been saved by the number of people we’ve vaccinated so far,” he said. “The more people we vaccinate, the more lives we can save.”
Hypothetically, “you have a population where there are 20,000 people. Half are vaccinated and half are not vaccinated. In the group without vaccines, if 1% of these people have Covid (ie 100 people in the group unvaccinated of 10,000), you might have ten in the vaccinated group, ”Talaat said. “But if at any given time the percentage of infected people is 1% of the population, those numbers are reduced to 10 and one.”
Some advanced infections are expected with these and other vaccines. No vaccine is 100% effective.
In clinical trials of vaccines, there were some advanced infections among vaccinated people, Dr. Carlos del Rio, executive associate dean of Emory University School of Medicine, wrote Thursday. Del Rio is a clinical trial researcher for Moderna and Novovax Covid-19 vaccines.
“There is currently a lot of transmission in many parts of the country. Vaccines will help decrease that,” del Rio said in the email. “Get vaccinated as soon as you can and help control this pandemic.”
Del Rio added that in the meantime, the public must continue to mask and distance themselves socially to help reduce the figures.