DOH identifies 3 ‘breakthrough’ cases of vaccinated residents

Health officials have identified three “breakthrough” cases in which a fully vaccinated person has contracted COVID19.

State Department of Health spokesman Brooks Baehr said the number of cases is not outside what they expected with nearly 165,000 people in Hawaii fully vaccinated.

He said a vaccine with 95 percent efficacy will protect 95 out of 100 people. This means 5 percent may still contract COVID-19 if exposed.

Baehr said that none of the individuals became severely ill and none are known to have transmitted COVID-19 to someone else.

“This is another reason we must all do our part to keep case counts low,” Baehr said. “The lower the prevalence of COVID in the community, the lower the chance of us — even those who have been vaccinated — will be infected.”

“The vaccines are preventing serious illness as they are designed to do,” Baehr added.

In one of the cases, an Oahu health care worker who received two doses of an approved vaccine and completed the series in early January contracted the virus after traveling to multiple U.S. Mainland cities in February.

Pre-travel testing was performed for the individual and a travel companion in preparation for returning to Hawaii and their positive results were received after they arrived back.

Neither developed symptoms and no transmission to close contacts occurred, according to the DOH’s weekly cluster report issued on Thursday.

The DOH did not say which island the other “breakthrough” cases were from.

According to the report, the department was still investigating the Maui Community Correctional Center outbreak, which it said had reached 86 positive cases.

The DOH has also been investigating several other Maui County clusters within the past 14 days — two clusters of 22 cases at bars and/or nightclubs; three clusters of 26 cases in the travel, lodging and tourism sector; and one cluster of 24 cases involving cleaning services.

A total of nine cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first found in the U.K. have all been identified on Oahu, the report said. The three people most recently identified with the variant were associated with travel to Las Vegas.