142 Fully Vaccinated People in Houston Test Positive for COVID-19

Lorenz Duchamps
By Lorenz Duchamps
April 14, 2021Vaccines
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142 Fully Vaccinated People in Houston Test Positive for COVID-19
A healthcare worker prepares a dose of the BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination hub location in League City, Texas, on Feb. 5, 2021. (Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images)

More than 140 people in Houston have tested positive for COVID-19 more than two weeks after being fully vaccinated against the virus that causes it, health experts in the Texas city confirmed.

According to data provided by the Houston Health Department, the number of Houstonians who caught the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus after being fully vaccinated is 142—or 0.02 percent of residents in the city who have been fully vaccinated, The Houston Chronicle reported.

The data of the potential so-called vaccine “breakthrough cases” go back to January when the first wave of recipients received a full vaccination. Breakthrough cases refer to COVID-19 cases that appear in people more than two weeks after they have been fully vaccinated against the CCP virus.

COVID-19 is caused by the CCP virus, commonly referred to as the novel coronavirus, which originated in China in late 2019.

Dr. David Persse, the city’s chief medical officer, said residents getting infected after being fully vaccinated is “not unexpected” because the jab doesn’t grant recipients 100 percent immunity.

“This vaccine is not dissimilar from other vaccines in that it gives you some level of protection, but no vaccine is 100 percent effective,” Persse said.

“While tens of hundreds of thousands have been vaccinated, in a community that still has viral spread, it’s not too big of a surprise there are a small number of people who have become infected,” he added.

None of the Houstonians that tested positive for COVID-19 after receiving the jab required hospitalization, Persse said, saying symptoms are usually incredibly mild with vaccinated people testing positive compared to unvaccinated people.

Fully vaccinated refers to people receiving both doses of the vaccines produced by Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech. A third option, from Johnson & Johnson—which is currently suspended in the United States after reports of rare blood clots among recipients—is a single dose.

According to U.S. drug regulators, Pfizer’s vaccine is 95 percent effective in preventing infection of the CCP virus. Moderna’s was shown in a clinical trial to be 94.1 percent effective, while Johnson & Johnson’s was 66.9 percent effective. The percentages are for two weeks after the final vaccination.

A number of U.S. states have recently seen similar infections among Americans who are fully vaccinated, including Idaho, Florida, Michigan Minnesota, South Carolina, and Washington.

Michigan data shows 246 residents tested positive for COVID-19 more than two weeks after being fully vaccinated. Eleven of the residents were hospitalized and three died, a spokesperson with the state Department of Health and Human Services (MDDHS) told The Epoch Times via email. The people who died were all 65 years of age or older.

In Washington, more than 100 people tested positive after being fully vaccinated, authorities said on March 31. Of those recipients, eight patients required hospitalization, and two have died. All contracted the virus more than two weeks after being fully vaccinated.

“Finding evidence of vaccine breakthrough cases reminds us that, even if you have been vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask, practice socially distancing, and wash your hands to prevent spreading COVID-19 to others who have not been vaccinated,” Washington Secretary of Health Umair Shah said in a statement.

Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters during a virtual briefing the number of so-called breakthrough COVID-19 cases is not a cause for concern.

“I think the important thing is to look at what the denominator of vaccinated people is, because it is very likely—and what we’re hearing at least indirectly, and we’re certainly going to be confirming that—that that number of individuals who were breakthrough infections is not at all incompatible with a 90-plus percent vaccine efficacy. So, I don’t think that there needs to be concern about any shift or change in the efficacy of the vaccine,” Fauci said.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.

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