hey guys welcome to another video this one's going to be about covid breakthrough cases
so covid cases hospitalizations and deaths they're on the rise again right now there are
162 million americans who are fully vaccinated now according to the cdc less than two percent
of people hospitalized with covid are vaccinated and get this 99.5 percent of people who die of covid did not
get the vaccine a covid breakthrough infection is defined as someone who tests positive for covid
with a pcr test at least 14 days after being fully vaccinated so there have been a number of reports
of breakthrough infections this includes at the white house in congress at the olympics
in major league baseball especially with the new york yankees and more now i've seen people with
breakthrough infections in the icu but not nearly as much as covid patients in the icu who did not
get the vaccine stanford is among nearly 600 universities and colleges nationwide that have
required students and faculty to be vaccinated against covid before coming back to campus in
the fall now stanford had seven fully vaccinated students who end up getting symptomatic covid
in a weak span now even before the delta variant showed up we knew that the vaccines weren't 100 percent effective
based on the original studies we knew that the mrna vaccines with pfizer and moderna
were about 95 percent effective at preventing severe covid illness which means that the percentage is even
smaller when you're talking about preventing mild or asymptomatic infections but the important thing
you want to know is how effective is the vaccine at preventing severe covid illness that's what
matters most but that 95 effectiveness was based on the original strain of covid now the scarier
and more contagious delta variant makes just about all covid cases in the united states it's greater
than 80 percent now according to the recent study when people are infected with the delta variant
they have about 1000 times more virus compared with the previous versions of the virus
so all that viral load has the potential to overwhelm the immune system even in vaccinated
people another study that was just published in the new england journal medicine also showed
that the delta variant is slightly more likely to cause breakthrough infections researchers in that
study found that after two doses of the pfizer vaccine it gave 88 protection against symptomatic
disease caused by the delta variant and that's compared to 93 against the alpha variant that
was first discovered in the uk for both doses of the astrazeneca vaccine it offered 67 protection
against symptomatic disease so we're still waiting on published numbers for the moderna vaccine
but according to the company its vaccine remained effective against the different variants
for the johnson & johnson vaccine it might be less effective against the delta and lambda variants but that
study is yet to be published it might be that for those who receive the johnson & johnson vaccine
they may need to get the pfizer or the moderna vaccine to protect against these new variants so
stay tuned on that we know that for those who have been vaccinated if they do become infected they're
going to have milder covid illness compared to those who are unvaccinated now this is based
on another study that was also published in the new england journal medicine where they looked at
more than 3900 essential workers it showed that fully vaccinated people are more than 90 percent protected
against infection even partially vaccinated people meaning they had one dose of the vaccine are 81 percent
less likely to become infected compared to those who haven't been inoculated
vaccinated people appear to be less likely to spread the virus to others those who got breakthrough infections after
either one or two doses of the vaccine had 40 percent less virus in their bodies and they were
58 percent less likely to have fever also they spent two fewer days in bed compared to unvaccinated covid patients
then there's the question if you're asymptomatic and you've been vaccinated can
you still spread the virus to others we know the vaccine reduces the likelihood of carrying the
virus and if you are carrying the virus we know that it would otherwise be a reduced viral load
so overall it's less likely that you're transmitting the virus if you're asymptomatic and
you've been vaccinated this is why the cdc says that fully vaccinated people can still be tested
if they have symptoms and shouldn't be out in public for at least 10 days after a positive test
this is actually being studied right now in 12000 college students who received the moderna vaccine
and what about those of you who are vaccinated and you're concerned about getting a breakthrough
infection if you were to get covid it's way more likely to be a milder course of disease
one thing you can do if you're exposed to a lot of people especially if they're not vaccinated is
to wear a mask now the kind of mask to wear is a whole nother topic but even a regular
face covering would still be better at decreasing transmission compared to no mask at all so that's
going to be all for this video thanks for watching if you haven't done so already make sure you hit
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