"I Got A 'Mild' Breakthrough Case. Here's What I Wish I'd Known"

[orleans]

a friend (in their 70s with numerous medical issues) was at an indoor gathering with family and friends (around 25 people) for hours over the weekend. they didn't know if a few people had been vaxxed or not. no one wore a mask

so i was googling and found this article from sept 12 on npr.
it's worth the read

The test results that hot day in early August shouldn't have surprised me — all the symptoms were there. A few days earlier, fatigue had enveloped me like a weighted blanket. I chalked it up to my weekend of travel. Next, a headache clamped down on the back of my skull. Then my eyeballs started to ache. And soon enough, everything tasted like nothing.

As a reporter who's covered the coronavirus since the first confirmed U.S. case landed in Seattle, where I live, I should have known what was coming, but there was some part of me that couldn't quite believe it. I had a breakthrough case of COVID-19 — despite my two shots of the Pfizer vaccine, the second one in April.

I was just one more example of our country's tug and pull between fantasies of a post-COVID-19 summer and the realities of our still-raging pandemic, where even the vaccinated can get sick.

Not only was I sick, but I'd brought the virus home and exposed my 67-year-old father and extended family during my first trip back to the East Coast since the start of the pandemic. It was just the scenario I had tried to avoid for a year and a half. And it definitely was not the summer vacation I had anticipated.

a lot more at link
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/12/1036356773/i-got-a-mild-breakthrough-case-heres-what-i-wish-id-known

[madville]

1. If we report symptoms at work we get tested

The last 5 positive employees were all vaccinated, four with Pfizer and one J&J. All had mild cold symptoms. We just had an unvaccinated guy return to work that testing revealed was out with the regular flu, had forgotten that could still happen. We've probably had other vaccinated folks that got infected but were asymptomatic so no reason to test, who knows. No one seems really very concerned anyway, it's like everyone has just gotten used to the new reality of it all.

[Demsrule86]

20. Well at many jobs employees won't report symptoms because there is no help available and you

sit home without pay...the states act like the pandemic is over but it is not.

[Hekate]

2. KnR

[lagomorph777]

3. Vaccination should add a layer, not let you remove layers of protection.

Mask, distance, avoid indoor gatherings where possible.

[marybourg]

6. That's an excellent way to think about it!

[Duppers]

11. Exactly. TY.

[maxsolomon]

17. For 1 magical month (July), it did

God that was great. I traveled back home, hugged my family for the 1st time in 2 years, ate indoors in restaurants.

Now I feel this will never end, due to my fellow citizens with Adult-Onset Oppositional Defiance Disorder.

[lagomorph777]

25. Not me. I never felt safe enough to do that.

And I live in a relatively safe county.

[maxsolomon]

27. It was a risk. Many different comfort levels with risk.

Obviously.

I'll take 5,000:1, but many won't. I see people walking down the street with masks & there's no one around. That seems like overkill, but I recognize the risk is not zero.

Anyway, like I said, it was just July, before Delta hit.

[Scrivener7]

4. Good information. Thank you.

[lapfog_1]

5. loss of taste is not as prevalent with Delta

as with previous variants.

Headache, some fever, runny nose... and shortness of breath are the prime symptoms of a mild case.

[NutmegYankee]

13. It still happens a lot though.

[róisín_dubh]

16. Oh I'm not so sure about that.

Everyone I know, or that I know through friends, who've had breakthrough cases have had taste loss as pretty much the only indicator that we've had COVID.
I got COVID in the UK in July, at the height of Delta there. The shortness of breath was never an issue for me.

[marble falls]

7. I had a samaller version of that, I didn't get Covid, but I sure could have ...

... It was an eye opener. We'd been very careful. One goof almost blew it.

I think you and I aren't the only slippers.

[phylny]

8. Great read/info.

Thank you for sharing this.

[Skittles]

9. at an indoor gathering with 25 people

THIS IS HOW IT KEEPS SPREADING

and the idiot in the article:

"We had flown across the country, seen friends, stayed at a hotel, eaten indoors and, yes, even went to a long-delayed wedding with other vaccinated people."

disgusting, although I do put partial blame on the CDC for their ridiculous advice to the already vaccinated to stop masking

[calimary]

10. And you don't wear a mask and you don't keep a safe distance

and you’re just SURE it won’t happen to you regardless.

And then, GUESS WHAT! You’re SICK! AGAIN!?!?!!!!

Sweet God in Heaven, is there ANYONE out there (either inside or outside Denial Land) who’s capable of learning ANYTHING?????

[Skittles]

15. it's so fucking moronic

but we saw that attitude right here on DU: FUCK IT, I'M NOT WEARING A MASK....as if the goal all along was to stop wearing a mask instead of ENDING A PANDEMIC.....unbelievably stupid, selfish behavior

[Crunchy Frog]

22. Yup. People getting ridiculed and called science deniers,

even accused of being the same as the anti-vaxxers, because they said they were continuing to wear masks.

This place sometimes.

[Sympthsical]

18. That was my first impression

"I went vacationing and partying. And a wedding! How did this happen?!"

I wear a mask to get a loaf of bread. You think I'm going into that?

[Skittles]

19. make no mistake

these are selfish, stupid people, even if they were vaccinated....I can't believe how hard some people take it, having to adjust to new behavior for the common good.....idiots, fucking morons

[orleans]

23. agree. and that stop masking crap was a huge mistake on their part

i seem to have a special relationship with my mask because i wear it when i'm around everyone
lol
i don't wear it when i'm alone in the car like i've seen some drivers doing (and i finally began to assume they were uber drivers and that would explain their precautions)

now that the stores and other businesses (in illinois) are requiring everyone--regardless of vax status--wear a mask i don't feel like such a freak. for awhile there it felt like people would look at me and think i wasn't vaxed because i had a mask on. (that wasn't the case--i was just being extra cautious or paranoid or both)

[NutmegYankee]

12. My Mother had a breakthrough case. (age 67)

She had fever for two nights, fatigue, and a loss of taste. She thought she had a sinus infection but the testing showed she had Covid. She recovered quite quickly. I had spent the entire week with her, even driving in the same car right up to the point she started to show symptoms. I never got sick and tested negative with PCR tests.

She is vaxxed with Pfizer, I'm vaxxed with Moderna.

[iluvtennis]

14. K&R - excellent article - thanks for posting. n/t

[Duppers]

21. My son also.

A friend came to visit NYC & stayed with him. The friend almost immediately came down with a "bad bout of flu." My 34yo vaccinated son then came down with this "flu" which he had trouble overcoming. His dr. tested him for CV. We're all grateful his case was mild & are convinced it would've been horrible if not for the vaccine.

[Ms. Toad]

24. Gee. Sounds like what I've been saying all along.

Got accused of not following the science, not understanding the math, of hoping COVID would continue, of being afraid to leave my house (despite the fact that I've been teaching in person for 13 months).

I wish people understood basic math - the extent to which those of us who are vaccinated became breakthorugh cases might have been considerably lower if the miniscule number of breakthrough cases in a study before delta, while people were wearing masks, when COVID wasn't surging hadn't been touted as predictive of the future risk of getting COVID.

[BannonsLiver]

26. It was always the pseudo expertise, the smugness and the unverified credentials.

^
Had nothing to do with the idea of masks preventing disease. They do, of course. That’s why I wear an n95 everywhere I go and work from home. Always have. Sometimes the truth hurts.