Michael Miranda had been fully vaccinated for over four months when he tested positive for the coronavirus. \u201cI stared at my phone for a few moments, wondering if this was a death sentence,\u201d said Miranda, who works as a probation officer in Hawaii. After flying home from a trip to the West Coast, Miranda had experienced chills, sneezes, and a fever of 102 degrees Fahrenheit. \u201cI immediately began blaming all the unmasked people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Daniele Selby, a writer in New York City, grappled with similar feelings when she started to experience exhaustion, significant congestion, headaches, and a loss of smell and taste. \u201cI was pretty shocked to learn I\u2019d tested positive,\u201d she said. \u201cI am fully vaccinated and have continued to wear masks \u2026 so to do all that and still get Covid-19 and feel ill has been pretty upsetting.\u201d <\/p>\n
The stories of vaccinated people with \u201cbreakthrough\u201d cases of Covid-19, which are increasingly making news, affecting policy, and spreading on social media, have some common threads. A dozen vaccinated people told Vox that testing positive brought up feelings of shock, anger, fear, and even shame. Many said they\u2019re finding themselves at the center of heated debates about vaccines, masks, and the future of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThere have definitely been some that have tried to use [my] experience to discount the efficacy of the vaccines or to push unfounded cures on social media,\u201d said Andr\u00e9 Gonzales, who traveled from Washington, DC, to New Mexico for a funeral in early June, and tested positive along with other vaccinated members of his family. Gonzales said he had grappled with \u201ca lot of guilt\u201d that he may have exposed \u201chigh-risk\u201d family members and unvaccinated children to the virus.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients definitely put a lot of emphasis on signaling to us that they had \u2018done everything right\u2019 before they got sick,\u201d says David Putrino, a neuroscientist and rehabilitation expert at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who has treated a few people with breakthrough Covid-19. \u201cI think that unfortunately there is an element of shame [or] guilt associated with getting Covid at this stage.\u201d <\/p>\n
People with breakthrough infections are not the first Covid-19 patients to have their stories politicized, or the first to feel guilt or shame after testing positive. But their experiences highlight some of the persistent fault lines in American attitudes toward the coronavirus right now. These cases are yet another example of the emotional toll of the pandemic, and are a frustrating reminder that the crisis isn\u2019t over for anyone. <\/p>\n
Patient experiences also show that while breakthrough infections are very unlikely to cause new waves of infection or overwhelm health care systems, they can still have significant ramifications for individuals, their families, and their communities \u2014 impacts that are often more difficult because they are unexpected.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s more to learn about breakthrough Covid-19<\/p>\n
Breakthrough infections refer to positive tests for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, in people who were fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Severe breakthrough cases are uncommon: More than 166 million people have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded 7,525 breakthrough cases that led to hospitalization or death.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe incidence is relatively low,\u201d said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious disease epidemiologist. \u201cBut whatever we know as breakthrough data is absolutely an undercount.\u201d The CDC says as much on its website, because reporting from health providers is voluntary and isn\u2019t comprehensive. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe still need more data on how common breakthrough infections are \u2014 and the CDC should be reporting this data,\u201d added Julia Raifman, an assistant professor of health policy at Boston University. The CDC is not currently counting mild breakthrough cases of Covid-19, and Raifman suggested this absence of data could be contributing to public confusion about the level of risk facing vaccinated individuals. <\/p>\n
As Katherine J. Wu has written in the Atlantic, the ability to develop Covid-19 is not what separates vaccinated and unvaccinated people. \u201cThe choice isn\u2019t about getting vaccinated or getting infected,\u201d Wu wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s about bolstering our defenses so that we are ready to fight an infection from the best position possible.\u201d If public health guidance suggests otherwise, it could run the risk of creating false expectations and even stigmatizing the experience of testing positive while vaccinated. <\/p>\n
\u201cVaccinated people should know that their chances of infection are lower than those of unvaccinated people,\u201d Raifman said. \u201cBut … infection will not be rare when there is uncontrolled transmission of Covid like we currently face.\u201d<\/p>\n
The stories of patients are being politicized<\/p>\n
While stories of breakthrough Covid-19 are not representative of the majority of Covid-19 cases \u2014 they may be amplified precisely because they\u2019re seen as surprising \u2014 many have gone viral on social media, and some have become fodder for commenters making inaccurate arguments against vaccines. Tweets from people with breakthrough infections garner thousands of likes and retweets, and responses range from supportive to skeptical. It can be overwhelming for patients who were not expecting a heated backlash.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could not believe how my post blew up,\u201d said Melinda Simmons, a biology professor in Florida whose tweet about her case prompted more than 1,000 comments. \u201cI tried to block the trolls and people using my post as an argument against vaccination, but I gave up after a while. I was sick, and dealing with the responses was exhausting.\u201d<\/p>\n