Biden on Delta Variation: Get Vaccinated, It's Safe, It's Free 1:27
(CNN) -
As the number of COVID-19 cases overall is on the rise again in the United States, infections in vaccinated people, while rare, are making headlines.
Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan tested positive for COVID-19 after getting vaccinated, according to a statement from his office Monday. Fully vaccinated entertainment journalist Catt Sadler warned her hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers not to "lower their guard" after she fell ill after caring for someone with COVID-19 who was not vaccinated. Last Thursday, six New York Yankees players tested positive. This was the second instance of such cases on the team.
Cases of infections in vaccinated people are also showing up at the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
An alternate member of the U.S. gymnastics team at the Olympics, Kara Eaker, who had been vaccinated tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday, her father confirmed to CNN affiliate KMBC on Monday.
Also the basketball player Katie Lou Samuelson, who confirmed on her Instagram account that she would not be able to compete in Tokyo.
The good news is that the number of infections in vaccinated people can be reduced, but a much greater community effort will be needed to protect people from contracting COVID-19.
What is an infection in vaccinated people?
Someone with such an infection has tested positive for the coronavirus that causes covid-19 at least 14 days after being fully vaccinated according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
For the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, full vaccination is after two doses.
For the Johnson & Johnson vaccine it is a single dose.
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These infections can cause illnesses with symptoms, and some people may not have any symptoms.
Research has shown that if people become infected after vaccination, they usually have a milder case.
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No vaccine is perfect
Covid-19 vaccines are highly protective against laboratory confirmed infection and appear to provide protection against variants;
however, a small fraction is still infected, as with any other vaccine.
"There is no vaccine that is 100% effective," said Dr. Amy Edwards, associate medical director for Pediatric Infection Control at UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland.
With other diseases like mumps or rubella, infections in vaccinated are very rare, Edwards said, because many people have been vaccinated against those diseases and mumps and rubella have low circulation.
"The likelihood that a person who did not respond to the vaccine will come into contact with these diseases is very low," Edwards said.
"The reason we are seeing more COVID infections in vaccinated is because there are many unvaccinated people."
Another example is the flu vaccine, which reduces the risk of getting sick by 40% to 60%, studies show.
Covid-19 vaccines are much more protective - up to 95% effective in preventing serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths.
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In numbers
We do not know how many infections in mild or asymptomatic vaccinated people with Covid-19 there are in the US The CDC stopped counting in May.
The CDC still counts hospitalizations and deaths from infections in vaccinated people.
The agency said it made this transition to "help maximize the quality of the data collected on the most clinically and public health cases."
As of July 12, there were 5,492 patients with these types of Covid-19 infections who had been hospitalized or had died, according to the CDC.
This is a small number among the more than 159 million people who have been fully vaccinated against covid-19.
It's difficult to draw specific conclusions about the infection rate from these numbers, but they are likely an undercount, according to the CDC.
Surveillance data is based on voluntary reports and not all reports are complete or not even representative of total infections.
What scientists do know is that 99.5% of COVID-19 deaths in the US right now are among people who are not vaccinated, said Dr. Vivek Murthy, US Chief Health Officer. .UU., To CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday.
CDC is monitoring vaccinated infections to identify which people are most likely to have these infections.
The CDC said there are no unusual patterns so far.
Questions from the audience about the coronavirus: If a vaccinated person gets COVID-19, does it increase their immunity or is it longer lasting?
Who can be more vulnerable to infections in vaccinated?
It is not entirely clear yet.
However, a study of infections that caused hospitalization in Israel found that 6% of the 152 people it studied had no underlying health problems.
On Friday, the CDC warned that vaccines may not protect immunosuppressed people.
People with weakened immune systems are those who have had an organ transplant, are receiving chemotherapy for cancer, are on dialysis, or are taking certain medications that suppress the immune system.
Generally, older people may be more vulnerable to such an infection, as studies show that the immune system deteriorates with age.
A pre-printed, non-peer-reviewed study in England found that older adults were at increased risk of such an infection.
Those COVID-19 cases were typically much milder than in the unvaccinated.
People who live in parts of the country with low vaccination rates may also have a higher chance of such an infection, as they would encounter more people with the disease.
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What can you do to prevent such an infection?
"If we want the cases of infection to stop in vaccinated people, then we need to vaccinate everyone else, so there is no virus circulating and then it won't matter anymore," Edwards said.
Nationally, less than 50% of the US has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the CDC.
If more people are vaccinated, the coronavirus has fewer people it can infect.
It also limits the number of new variants that can be developed.
More variants in circulation increase the likelihood that the coronavirus could evade the protection of vaccines.
"If you are not vaccinated, you are still at risk," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Friday.
"This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated."
When asked if people who are vaccinated should do something different than what they normally would, Murthy told CNN on Sunday that even with an infection after being vaccinated "which, again, occurs in a very small minority of people, it is likely to be mild or asymptomatic infection. "
He said it would be advisable to wear a mask indoors as a precaution if you are in an area with large numbers of unvaccinated people.
"Again: even if the vaccine doesn't offer complete protection, it does offer a lot of protection," Edwards said.
"Even when they don't work as well in immunosuppressed patients, they provide some protection. That's why it's up to the rest of us to get vaccinated because we want to protect those people, the frail and the elderly, and everyone else."
"So please, I can't say this enough," Edwards said.
"Get vaccinated."
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