The odds of a vaccinated person getting sick with COVID-19 have changed since the more transmissible Delta variant came to dominate the U.S. pandemic, but probably not as much as you think, David Leonhardt writes in Tuesday’s New York Times. In July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the “terrifying fact” that “vaccinated people with the Delta variant of the COVID virus carried roughly the same viral load in their noses and throats as unvaccinated people,” but newer data “suggests the true picture is less alarming.”
Statistics from Utah, Virginia, and King County (Seattle), Washington — three areas that report detailed data on COVID-19 infections by vaccination status — “are consistent with the idea that about 1 in 5,000 vaccinated Americans have tested positive for COVID each day in recent weeks,” Leonhardt writes, and in areas, like Seattle, with high vaccination rates, social distancing, and mask usage, the odds are “probably less than 1 in 10,000.”
The risks aren’t zero — as Axios‘ Felix Salmon notes, a 1-in-5,000 risk every day works out to about a 7 percent per year chance of getting sick from COVID-19. And Leonhardt waves off the undiagnosed breakthrough cases, because they are “are often so mild that people do not notice them and do not pass the virus to anyone else.”
Not being vaccinated while riding in a vehicle is now twice as dangerous as being vaccinated while riding? It’s so confusing!
That is such an unclear statement. Do you mean about the same as getting killed in an automobile? Please clarify.
Are you a junkie, man?