Vaccines lower risk, but risk still there

CHARACTERIZING THE current state of COVID-19 infections as an “epidemic of the unvaccinated” may be a catchy motto, but it is not true.

Health authorities in Los Angeles reported that from July 1-16 there were 13,598 cases of COVID-19. The unvaccinated represented 74% of all the cases.; fully vaccinated residents accounted for 26% of infections.

An incident and testing in July in Cape Cod, Mass., showed that 74% of the 469 cases studied were in people who were fully vaccinated, according to a CDC study. The same study found that vaccinated people had a similar amount of virus present as the unvaccinated, “suggesting that unlike other variants, vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant could transmit the virus,” the CDC said.

So based on these studies, approximately one-quarter to three-quarters of COVID-19 cases are in vaccinated people. And the vaccinated people are as contagious as unvaccinated people with COVID-19.

The CDC web page as of July 27, in an attempt to differentiate vaccinated from unvaccinated people, shows: Fully vaccinated people can:

■ Participate in many of the activities that they did before the pandemic; for some of these activities, they may choose to wear a mask.

■ Resume domestic travel and refrain from testing before or after travel and from self-quarantine after travel.

■ Refrain from testing before leaving the United States for international travel unless required by the destination and refrain from self-quarantine after arriving back in the United States.

■ Refrain from routine screening testing if feasible.

Is this consistent with the fact both vaccinated and unvaccinated can spread the virus?

We need to remember the vaccines do not claim to prevent infection. They claim to reduce the severity of illness and hospitalizations, which are good things. The benefits and limitations need to be kept in mind.

PHILLIP PICKMAN Tijeras