So What’s the Deal With “Breakthrough” Covid Cases?

Photo courtesy McLean County Facebook Page

NORMAL, Ill. – The United States is currently navigating a third wave of COVID-19 infections; in some areas of the country, the rates of positive cases are higher than they have ever been.

The highly contagious omicron variant is spreading rapidly throughout the population.

Notably, even people who are vaccinated against COVID are getting the virus. So, why does this happen?

Douglas Kasper, M.D. ,a leader in the OSF HealthCare response to COVID-19, discusses why vaccine breakthroughs occur. 

“Any immune response is not uniform. How all of us interact with a virus will be different. So because of that, vaccines or natural immunity are not 100% protective.”

This has prompted many people to doubt the worthiness and effectiveness of the vaccines against COVID-19.

However, Dr. Kasper emphasizes this is not a reason to not get vaccinated and/or boosted against the virus.

“What we know is that people who receive the vaccine, even if they become ill, tend to become more mild cases of disease than those who have not received the vaccine.”

So, even if you are vaccinated and catch the virus,  you will have much less severe symptoms than those who are unvaccinated.