Evidence mounts that people with breakthrough infections can spread Delta easily

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A preliminary study has shown that in the case of a breakthrough infection, the Delta variant is able to grow in the noses of vaccinated people to the same degree as if they were not vaccinated at all. The virus that grows is just as infectious as that in unvaccinated people, meaning vaccinated people can transmit the virus and infect others.

Previous studies in hospitals in India; Provincetown, Massachusetts; and Finland have also shown that after vaccine breakthrough infections with Delta, there can be high levels of virus in people’s nose whether they are vaccinated or not. The next logical step was to determine whether vaccinated people could shed infectious virus. Many experts suspected they did, but until this study it hadn’t been proven in the lab.

“We're the first to demonstrate, as far as I'm aware, that infectious virus can be cultured from the fully vaccinated infections,” says Kasen Riemersma, a virologist at University of Wisconsin who is one of the authors of the study.

“Delta is breaking through more preferentially after vaccines as compared to the non-Delta variants” because it’s extremely infectious and evades the immune response, says Ravindra Gupta, a microbiologist at University of Cambridge. Gupta’s lab was one of the first to document that fully vaccinated healthcare workers could get infected with Delta and had high levels of virus in their noses.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/evidence-mounts-that-people-with-breakthrough-infections-can-spread-delta-easily

[Tomconroy]

1. A large study in the UK showed the opposite.

[wackadoo wabbit]

6. Do you have a link to that study?

I'd like to read it.

[Tomconroy]

7. Not a link to the study but maybe this will

Help you find it. They are gathering data in intervals of a few weeks. Just in looking for the link it looks like the latest survey may contradict my assertion. Actually, no. That's a new Oxford study.

https://www.reactstudy.org/

Here's a better link. It's the Wig. 4 release you want.


https://www.reactstudy.org/

[democrattotheend]

2. This may be a dumb question

But if the virus continues to spread among vaccinated people, could it also still continue mutating even if everyone was vaccinated? And even if the answer is yes, is there any hope of stopping mutations until we also get kids under 12 vaccinated and get more people vaccinated in the developing world? This is getting depressing.

[Tomconroy]

3. A vaccine that is 90 percent effective is still

Going to allow a lot of breakthrough infections, although the symptoms may be mild or non-existent.

[madville]

4. Yes, mutations can, will and do occur in vaccinated people that get infected

That's a main reason Delta is so concerning, because so many vaccinated people are getting infected. The vaccine immune response can actually give the virus a reason or roadmap to mutate, in order to try to evade it. It not unlike antibiotics becoming less affective the more you use them, bacteria develops a resistance, viruses can and do mutate in response to vaccine use. That's why vaccines and future boosters will have to constantly be updated as new variants emerge.

There have been many articles about the potential for COVID mutations in vaccinated folks:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/10/965940914/covid-19-vaccines-could-add-fuel-to-evolution-of-more-coronavirus-mutations

[lostnfound]

8. A study with estimates of virons in lungs vs nose

This analysis estimated the total numbers of virus particles in an infected person. The biggest reservoir of virus “infectious units” by far is the lungs. In the lungs, between 100,000 and 10,000,000. The nose, pharynx, trachea, and bronchus combined are estimated between 200 and 20,000.

if the immune system of a vaccinated person is liable to fight off the infection before it takes over the lungs, the number of replications and hence the potential for variants would be greatly reduced.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8237675/

Also, the following study was quoted on Eric Feigl-Ding’s Twitter feed which shows equal viral loads for the first 6 days — but after that, the numbers really fall off.

Link to tweet

My suspicion is “yes, it can keep mutating but at much less frequency than in an unvaccinated population.”

[triron]

5. We haven't seen that here in NM. Maybe something unique about our version?