Vaccine Myth: People who have been vaccinated are getting COVID-19 cases too, and that shows the vaccination really doesn’t work.
It is true that some people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 have still been infected with the virus. That’s no myth. But those breakthrough cases do not show the vaccine doesn’t work. There’s plenty of data that shows the vaccine does work by keeping people from getting COVID and tamping down the symptoms in breakthrough cases.
Two local experts keep up with that data.
Dr. Aaron Carroll is the Chief Health Officer for Indiana University.
“Most of the serious outcomes that we’re seeing in terms of hospitalization, or worse ICU, and God-forbid deaths, are so, so, so skewed to unvaccinated people,” he said last week, “and we’re going to do our best to get the last few people at IU vaccinated if we can.”
Dr. Tom Hrisomalos, an infectious disease specialist with IU Health, said while hospitalizations continue to rise, over 90 percent of those hospitalized in Monroe County are not vaccinated.
To put that number in perspective, 58 percent of eligible Monroe County residents have been vaccinated, and 42 percent have not. Over nine out of 10 hospitalizations from the disease come from the significant minority who haven’t gotten the shot.
The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly reported that a study in Los Angeles County showed the unvaccinated were five times as likely to be infected by the virus as those fully vaccinated. Of those infected, those unvaccinated were much more likely to become seriously ill. The study found those who were unvaccinated were 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than people who are vaccinated.
