Washington, Florida, South Carolina, Texas, New York, California and Minnesota all reported breakthrough cases from COVID.
The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) announced Tuesday that it is investigating reports of people who tested positive for COVID for more than two weeks after being fully ‘vaccinated’ against the disease.
According to Kiro 7 News , a CBS affiliate in Washington, the DOH is investigating reports of so-called “breakthrough cases,” which are said to be expected with any vaccine. Each case was confirmed with a polymerase chain reaction ( PCR ) test or a positive antigen test more than two weeks after the person was fully vaccinated.
A majority of people with a confirmed vaccine breakthrough experienced mild symptoms, if any. However, since February 1, eight people with vaccine breakthrough cases were hospitalized and the DOH “is investigating two possible vaccine breakthrough cases in which the patients died. Both patients were over 80 years old and suffered from underlying health problems “, officials said in a press release . Ask Congress to investigate the origins of Covid – take action
Washington is not the only state reporting breakthrough cases. Florida, South Carolina, Texas, New York, California and Minnesota have also reported cases of fully vaccinated people who tested positive and became ill with COVID.
The Florida Department of Health in Volusia County had six documented breakthrough cases, Sumter County had six and Lake County had 26 cases, according to emails from each county spokesperson.
Dr. Sunil Joshi, president of the Duval County Medical Foundation , compared the COVID vaccine to the flu vaccine . ‘For example, it’s like the flu shot . We know, we encourage people to get the flu vaccine. That doesn’t mean you won’t get the flu. But the disease is significantly reduced, ” said Joshi . So remember, the whole purpose of this from the beginning was to keep people out of the hospital. And so anything positive after the vaccine is not unusual, it can happen. ”
In Charleston, South Carolina, the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) identified 134 breakthrough cases in fully vaccinated individuals statewide. In the past month alone, Roper St. Francis Healthcare treated four patients in the hospital and were aware of 10 other “breakthrough” cases that did not require hospitalization.
The Medical University of South Carolina reported seven COVID cases in fully vaccinated people. Roper Hospital is working with DHEC to analyze positive test results to see if variants may play a role.
“All these individuals that we identify who get infected or even hospitalized despite the fact that they received two doses, that virus will be sent to DHEC for further analysis,” said Dr. Kent Stock, infectious disease physician . “The question is, does that phenomenon affect these numbers?”
In Wichita Falls, Texas, on Monday, seven vaccine breakthrough cases were reported among those who had been fully vaccinated against COVID. Of the seven cases, six had the Pfizer vaccine and one had Moderna .
“We’ve been looking at that from the very beginning, since the vaccinations started and so we started noticing that maybe it was only one a week, two a week, now we’re up to seven,” Amy Fagan, assistant health director of the Wichita Falls Wichita County Public Health District, said .
As of March 24, according to Star Tribune, Minnesota had identified 89 “breakthrough” COVID infections, a small number of which resulted in hospitalization .
Out of caution, the state reviews the cases to see if they have anything in common, said director of infectious diseases Kris Ehresmann. “A cluster of cases vaccinated in the same location could indicate a treatment problem with the vaccine, or that there was a lot of infection,” she said.
When asked about vaccine breakthrough cases in Minnesota during a White House press conference on March 26, Dr. Anthony Fauci , President Biden’s chief medical advisor, said, “This is something we take seriously and monitor closely. You will see breakthrough infections with every vaccination when you vaccinate literally tens and tens and tens of millions of people. So in some ways that’s not surprising. ”
According to Fox News, a woman from Long Island, New York tested positive for COVID on Tuesday – more than a month after she received her second dose of the Moderna vaccine meant to protect against the virus. “I was shocked,” Rosen said. “I’m the 4.9% who got Moderna and actually got COVID.”
In a March 23 letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, eight doctors reported on a study they had conducted on breakthrough cases at the health systems of the University of California, San Diego and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
According to the letter, on December 26, 2020, UCLA instituted an optional testing program for asymptomatic health care workers using PCR neural testing in an effort to detect asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections after vaccination .
From December 16, 2020 through February 9, 2021, a total of 36,659 health workers received the first dose of a COVID vaccine, and 28,184 of these individuals (77%) received the second dose. Of those vaccinated, 379 tested positive for COVID at least one day after vaccination, and the majority (71%) tested positive within the first two weeks after the first dose. After receiving both vaccinations, 37 health professionals tested positive.
According to the study, the risk of testing positive for COVID after vaccination was between 0.97% and 1.19% – percentages higher than the risks reported in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine studies.
As The Defender reported in December 2020 , one explanation for “breakthrough cases” in fully vaccinated may be the use of polyethylene glycol (PEG) in mRNA Covid vaccines such as Moderna and Pfizer.
Studies have shown that about 72% of people may have PEG antibodies. In those people, the antibodies can cause an anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine. Or the antibodies may degrade and break down the PEG-coated mRNA in the vaccine before it has a chance to get into the cell and begin to program the production of spike proteins, making the vaccine less effective.