Such “breakthrough” cases have become central to a global debate over whether highly vaccinated countries should give booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines, and to which people.
“The vaccinated patients are older, unhealthy, often they were bedridden before infection, immobile and already requiring nursing care,” said Noa Eliakim-Raz, head of the coronavirus ward at Rabin Medical Center in Petach Tikva. Health officials in the UK and United States, two other nations with high vaccination rates and a spike in Delta infections, have reported similar trends.
“We are watching other countries carefully and concerned that we too will see what Israel is seeing, which is worsening infections over time” among vaccinated people, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said at a press conference on Wednesday. “For some of them the vaccine did not trigger an immune response, they had no antibodies, because of the illness itself or because they are treated with medication that suppresses the immune system,” said Dror Mevorach, who heads the coronavirus ward at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem.Among 3 million vaccinated Israelis covered by Clalit, the country’s largest healthcare provider, 600 have suffered severe breakthrough cases since June.