Revolutionary COVID cases: California doctor explains your chances of contracting the virus after vaccination

MARIN COUNTY, Calif .– As the Delta variant spreads, we are learning more about the groundbreaking cases of COVID-19.

Figures from the California State Department of Health help put into perspective the chances of contracting coronavirus after being vaccinated – and how risky it is.

According to the California Department of Public Health, 20.7 million Californians have been fully vaccinated. About 14,000 of these people (about 1 in 1,441) have since contracted COVID-19.

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A fraction of these, 843, led to hospitalizations. Even fewer, 88, led to death. (That number could even be lower, as health officials warn that in some of these cases, it’s not clear whether COVID-19 was the leading cause of death.)

Bottom Line: It’s still extremely rare, about a 1 in 235,227 chance that you will die from coronavirus after being vaccinated, according to the latest data.

“It’s important for people to recognize that the vaccine protects very strongly against serious illness and death,” Dr. Matt Willis, director of public health for Marin County in Northern California, told our sister channel KGO-TV. . “And when we see these groundbreaking cases, they’re asymptomatic, no symptoms, or mildly symptomatic like cold symptoms.”

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He says that a large majority of hospitalizations of vaccinated people are in the elderly or immunocompromised.

Willis added that his county saw no association between the type of vaccine a person received and whether they were at a higher risk of breakthrough cases.

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Dr Willis said people need to remember that immunity should be seen as a continuum and the vaccine as a dimmer.

“It looks more like a dimmer than a light switch. It’s not an on / off switch. It’s on a continuum of protection,” he said. “And I think that’s an important message because otherwise people might interpret breakthrough cases as a sign that the vaccine is not working.”