Dr. Jerome Adams on breakthrough COVID cases: We shouldn’t be surprised, alarmed
WESTFIELD, Ind. (WISH) – Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich has tested positive for COVID-19.
Chris Ballard, general manager of the Colts, made the announcement in a Monday morning press conference.
Ballard says Reich is not showing any symptoms and had been vaccinated.
Breakthrough cases such as Reich’s are uncommon, but not impossible.
In Indiana, more than 2.85 million people are fully vaccinated according to the Indiana State Department of Health. The state said just over 2,700 people have caught COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated, meaning less than 0.1% of fully vaccinated people in Indiana have caught the virus. While that percentage is low, concern among health officials is growing.
WISH-TV medical expert and former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams emphasizes that vaccinated people are better prepared to protect themselves from severe disease and hospitalization and is not surprised to hear about the Colts breakthrough cases.
“I am not surprised and we shouldn’t be surprised and quite frankly, we should not be alarmed. What vaccines are designed to do is train your body, just like the Colts train in practice so that when you meet that enemy in real life, you can fight that enemy. It doesn’t mean the enemy is not going to come, it doesn’t mean you are not going to be still assaulted by COVID – especially as we see cases going up and it doesn’t mean it is not going to take a while for you to fight that back, which is when you might test positive, but it does mean you are more prepared to protect yourself against severe disease and hospitalization. So Frank’s vaccine did exactly what it is supposed to do and it’s why we need more people to get vaccinated so they can protect themselves,” said Dr. Adams.
Federal health officials said 99.5% of deaths from COVID-19 are now among the unvaccinated and more than 97% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are also unvaccinated.
“You can still get the virus and your body will fight it off and that is considered a breakthrough case by some people’s definitions, but practically what matters to me and what matters to your viewers is whether or not you end up in the hospital or whether or not you end up dying from COVID and that is incredibly rare. Still 90% effectiveness from these vaccines, even in the midst of the Delta variant, against severe disease and hospitalization. So, we are going to see some breakthrough infections in terms of people testing positive, but we are not seeing very many, very many at all breakthrough infections from the standpoint that people are getting really sick,” said Adams.