Infections among fully vaccinated

[BoofTheFloof]

In the last 4 weeks I know of eleven fully vaccinated adults in my wider social circle who have caught covid. Transmission has been either via returning to work or catching it from school aged children (the case rate in our local schools is very high but no one is talking about it. 4 cases in my daughters class of 16)
None of the adults have needed hospital but a couple have been extremely sick for 2-3 weeks and one was triaged in an ambulance.
I know that the vaccine doesn't prevent all cases but is it preventing any? All of the adults infected have it to their whole family. Or is it just making the subsequent covid infection less virulent?

Have I just been unlucky with the people I know or is this about to be a thing? I'm resigned now to probably catching it which is really concerning as I was classified as CEV.

My experience echoes some here:

• main symptoms cracking sinus headache, running nose, loads of sneezing, hot cold flushes, racing heart and shortness of breath esp when fatigued.

• LTF tests seemed to take a long time to turn positive. Each of us were testing thinking "surely we must have covid!" And only two or three days later did the positive result appear.

Don't worry, Pfizer have got immunity - even if you haven't!

DS1 thought he had a cold they are testing regularly at his work. He did two lft tests and both negative. Very tired and wheezy but he is asthmatic contacted GP - phone call who prescribed antibiotics and steroids and told to get a PCR Walk in/ drive in nearby result next day and he is positive. He normally goes Fell walking every week and swims and he has had both vaccines. Early 40’s. Thinks he caught it at work. He is Kitchen Manager for well known, busy pub.
His father took him his prescription and has tested negative. I haven’t seen DS for a few weeks but we are now isolating. I have severe headaches but I do get migraine. We have both had vaccine.

I can’t decide if you might be on my family OP.

Exactly the same situation here; 5 adults all fully vaccinated have caught covid from one another, how they actually got it must have been through the only school aged child though. They’ve all been really poorly too; although I suspect without the vaccine they’re symptoms may well have been worse than they are now.. but it did make me question just how much the vaccine reduces transmission; we know it’s not 100%, but that seemed like a lot of vaccinated people catching covid quite quickly.

Any who, despite my reservations, health anxiety and catastrophic thoughts; I've had my 12 week scan, baby is healthy so I’ve had my first dose of Pfizer today. Arms a bit sore and funnily enough I didn’t die of anaphylaxis in those first 15 minutes, or so far. Hoorah!

Now I need to spend the next 8 weeks plucking your the gall to have the second dose 😂💀

Vaccination has not failed. It was designed using the Alpha variant

No it wasn’t. It was designed against the original wild strain. The alpha variant is the Kent variant that was prevalent last winter.

@Yarnandneedles

Unfortunately it’s a coronavirus. They mutate all the time and it’s going to keep mutating. Eventually the vaccine won’t work at all unless they change the vaccine.

I thought coronaviruses didn’t typically mutate much - certainly not as much as flu viruses?

Yes, but the spike protein mutates enough to potentially evade vaccines (as we're seeing with the delta variant).

Interestingly, it is being reported today that Sarah Gilbert doesn’t think it will mutate to become more deadly.

“The virus can’t completely mutate because the spike protein has to interact with the Ace2 receptor on the surface of the human cell in order to get inside that cell.

“If it changes its spike protein so much that it can’t interact with that receptor, then it’s not going to be able to get inside the cell.

“There aren’t very many places for the viruses to go to have something that will evade immunity but still be a really infective virus.

“So I don’t think there’s an enormous amount of concern that we’re suddenly going to see a switch to something that evades existing immunity.”

Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert

inews.co.uk/news/covid-variant-vaccine-resist-immunity-more-severe-oxford-jab-sarah-gilbert-1212744

I, meanwhile, seem to have developed post-covid symptoms. Remains fatigued, sleeping every day, jelly legs, weepy, not at work. Also suffering the most awful phantom smells - lingering putrefaction.

Yep, one day up, one day down. I don't have the putrefaction smell though, thank goodness! Doctor has suggested some blood tests to check for anaemia and B12 deficiency. I read post Covid anaemia can be a thing.

I'm still getting really pissed off with people telling me I would certainly be dead if wasn't for the vaccine. The latest was a bloke who works in the office next door to me, who is Mr Vaccine - he's already had his booster. He's 50, does no exercise at all, eats crap, no fruit and veg, and is enormously overweight. He seems to think all he has to do to remain healthy is get injected with a covid vaccine every six months for the rest of his life.

I wasn't even that ill! I "just" have post viral effects.

He was telling me about his very healthy unvaccinated friend who died of Covid last week, so therefore my death would have been inevitable too. I am very sorry about his friend, but I knew the bloke slightly too. I know this might be a controversial statement, but I wouldn't have classed him as very healthy. This weight thing seems to be the thing no one wants to properly talk about. There might well be people who get offended or defensive, but I can't help that.

How has he already had his booster?!

I agree with the weight thing. Im overweight. By a stone and a half. Double vaccinated and getting over covid pneumonia. I wonder what impact my weight has had on it all. We were all weighed on the ward so I think it’s still very much being monitored.

Dh and I are fully vaccinated and caught covid a week or so ago. We were pretty unwell and I'm still not right. I am fit and healthy, 40, not overweight, run every other day. I know loads and loads of adults that have caught covid recently, it's rife in our area. No one seems to get it asymptomatic any more? Everyone seems to get heavy cold /flu type, just with shorter duration. That I know of anyway.

@TheVolturi

Dh and I are fully vaccinated and caught covid a week or so ago. We were pretty unwell and I'm still not right. I am fit and healthy, 40, not overweight, run every other day. I know loads and loads of adults that have caught covid recently, it's rife in our area. No one seems to get it asymptomatic any more? Everyone seems to get heavy cold /flu type, just with shorter duration. That I know of anyway.

How unwell were you? I'm still hearing of people with shortness of breath etc!

@gogginsmrs

I agree with the weight thing. Im overweight. By a stone and a half. Double vaccinated and getting over covid pneumonia. I wonder what impact my weight has had on it all. We were all weighed on the ward so I think it’s still very much being monitored.

It's probably not really being monitored. All inpatients get weighed. They need it for drug dosing mainly.

No my drugs were already prescribed - I’d been on them days before I was weighed.

We were both flat out for 3 full days with flu type symptoms. High temp, shivery, shaking, aching really badly, bad headache, very blocked sinuses, sneezing, coughing. A few days apart thankfully so we managed to still look after our young dc between us. Then gradually felt better but still very breathless and tight chested. I tested positive just over a week ago so still early days I suppose. I still feel like my sinuses are blocked and my ears, and I just feel rubbish.

Fwiw the general consensus on the ward was people are, generally, still getting sick with covid following vaccine but they’re not dying. We’ve come a long way in that respect.

@TheVolturi

We were both flat out for 3 full days with flu type symptoms. High temp, shivery, shaking, aching really badly, bad headache, very blocked sinuses, sneezing, coughing. A few days apart thankfully so we managed to still look after our young dc between us. Then gradually felt better but still very breathless and tight chested. I tested positive just over a week ago so still early days I suppose. I still feel like my sinuses are blocked and my ears, and I just feel rubbish.

That was @chowmeinhotdog

Why are people who are sick doing LFTs?
Do you realise they only pick up 40% of cases?
It’s to do with sensitivity and specificity.
A positive LFT means you most likely have Covid. Negative means you MAY have it because 40% of you will be testing false negative.
People with symptoms are supposed to get a PCR.

Personally I think they should stop testing now as people don’t understand what the tests are for. Added to which, it’s endemic amongst us anyway.

@Yarnandneedles

Why are people who are sick doing LFTs? Do you realise they only pick up 40% of cases? It’s to do with sensitivity and specificity. A positive LFT means you most likely have Covid. Negative means you MAY have it because 40% of you will be testing false negative. People with symptoms are supposed to get a PCR.

Personally I think they should stop testing now as people don’t understand what the tests are for. Added to which, it’s endemic amongst us anyway.

In practice, PCRs were picking up 40% of true positives. LFTs closer to 20%. I am amazed that we've been in this for 18 months and a negative PCR still comes with the message "this means you did not have coronavirus at the time the test was performed". No, it doesn't mean that at all. The clinicians all know this. How has this not made it into public knowledge? It's insane. We're just numbers to the public health authorities.

@cttontail

UCL dynamic causal modelling data from 13th September: Current estimates of the vaccination efficacy are: preventing infection: 10.2% (CI 6.2 to 14.1) preventing transmission following infection 89.7% (CI 88.9 to 90.4) preventing serious illness when symptomatic (age 15-34) 78.5% (CI 77.9 to 79.1) preventing serious illness when symptomatic (age 35-70) 52.7% (CI 51.5 to 54.0) preventing fatality when seriously ill 56.2% (CI 55.3 to 57.2) The corresponding cumulative (vaccinated vs. unvaccinated) risks are: relative risk of infection 89.8% relative risk of mild illness 38.5% relative risk of severe illness 13.0% relative risk of fatality 5.7% For example, vaccination reduces the risk of being infected and developing a severe illness to 13.0% of the risk prior to vaccination.

The vaccines are really not preventing infection in the vast majority of cases (89%) and we should not be expecting them to do that. The majority of people hospitalised in the UK are double vaccinated. This is because the majority of these hospitalisations are of the more vulnerable (elderly) and although the vaccine is reducing the likelihood of hospitalisation significantly, if you were in a group where 20% of unvaccinated people were going to end up in hospital that still means 0.20.13100=2.6% of vaccinated people are going to be hospitalised in your age category. The majority of people in the country, particularly the vulnerable, are double vaccinated now. This means more vaccinated people are in hospital by overall numbers, but if you look as a proportion of the total population of vaccinated/unvaccinated then of course you see a much higher proportion of the unvaccinated end up in hospital (because they still have the 20% risk (although this is likely higher with delta than the data published for alpha/WT)).

Very useful information. I don't know if you can clear this up for me with some possible links.

I heard the other day that statistically you are classified as unvaccinated until 2 weeks after your 2nd jab.

How accurate is this?

This means Unvaccinated, 1st dose and 2nd dosed vaccinated people are not classified as vaccinated until 2 weeks have passed after their second jab.

Doesn't this screw up statistics.

If this is not the case can you please post any links or evidence that clarifies how we count our vaccinated vs unvaccinated?

This could have been just in the US but I'm keen to find out how we record numbers in the UK.

Many thanks