More on breakthrough issue: Vaccines still work, CDC studies show

Breakthrough cases of COVID-19 among vaccinated people remain rare (and are generally less serious when they do occur), despite the surge of the hypercontagious Delta variant. The attention that these cases get in the media, however, is significant.

Reports of COVID-19 cases among vaccinated members of the Chicago Cubs’ front office, three U.S. senators and a cluster of people in Provincetown, Mass., have put a spotlight on breakthrough cases and raised questions about the continued effectiveness of vaccines in the face of the Delta threat.

But vaccines continue to offer strong protection against the most severe forms of the disease.

“We may have been giving a message that sounds like the vaccines aren't working very well, which to me can scare the vaccinated and actually doesn't make the unvaccinated think they should get a vaccine,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told Yahoo News.

“[Vaccinated] people are really very protected from severe disease. … I think we need to be way more positive,” she added.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published three studies that highlight the continued effectiveness of all three approved vaccines in the U.S.: those produced by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

According to one of the studies, among approximately 600,000 COVID-19 cases recorded across 13 U.S. jurisdictions, there was some increase in breakthrough cases since the Delta variant gained dominance in the U.S. But that number remains a very small percentage of the total number of vaccinated people in the study. ...