On Wednesday, in response to a query from Deadline, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer confirmed that at least a dozen local residents had been infected with Covid-19 after being fully vaccinated. <\/p>\n
“Yes, it is possible to test positive for the virus after being fully vaccinated,” Ferrer reported. She estimated that the number of post-vaccination infections is likely “very small.”<\/p>\n
Ferrer said all of the so-called “breakthrough cases” of infection detected in the county occurred in long-term care facilities. In all, there were 12 fully-vaccinated people who were infected. Four of them were residents of those facilities and and eight were staff.<\/p>\n
“I’m sure there are other places [in L.A. County] because I know across the country that there have been more [breakthrough] cases,” said Ferrer before noting the detected cases in long-term care facilities weren’t likely because of any lack of precaution, but rather because the data from those environments is better.<\/p>\n
“This is one place where we have really good data in part because of our strong partnership with long term care facilities.”<\/p>\n
Ferrer also added, “The vast majority of people who have tested positive after being fully vaccinated are asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms. <\/p>\n
“Here is L.A. County we don’t know of anybody who has been hospitalized or — unfortunately — passed away.”<\/p>\n
But, as for other local breakthrough cases of Covid-19 infection, the data is very incomplete, she said making an overall assessment “a hard question to answer.” <\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday, 39 breakthrough cases were reported in Sonoma County over the course of the last two and a half months, according to county officials.<\/p>\n
It is unclear what the cause of the 12 infections is, but one source may be vaccine-resistant variants. The number of variants are growing in Los Angeles, though it is uncertain which –if any — may be vaccine resistant. <\/p>\n
Health officials at the national, state and local levels all observe that, whatever the case, vaccine resistance among variants is nowhere near total. The vaccines still provide a good level of protection.<\/p>\n
“There’s nothing there yet that’s a red flag. We obviously are going to keep an eye on that very, very carefully. But I don’t see anything that changes our concept of the vaccine and its efficacy,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci at a recent White House briefing.<\/p>\n