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In April, 92 people gathered in Texas for a wedding. To lower the chances of COVID-19 infection, the festivities were held outside under a large, open-air tent. All 92 guests were required to be fully vaccinated.
Despite those precautions, six people tested positive for the coronavirus and one of them died, Forbes magazine reported, citing a preprint published in medRxiv.
Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine said viral sequencing suggests “the strain containing the Delta variant was transmitted to wedding guests from two patients travelling from India. With no history of vaccine failure in these patients, our observations suggest these are true cases of vaccine breakthrough, mediated by the Delta variant.”
Three females and three men ages 53-69 tested positive for COVID-19. Three were overweight, but none had significant comorbidities or a history of failed vaccination.
The first people to get sick were a man and woman who traveled from India, Forbes reported. The man had no health problems, but the woman had diabetes. Both had gotten two doses of the Covaxin BBV152 vaccine before leaving India.
They tested positive for COVID 4 days after the wedding, and the man became so ill he was hospitalized. Six days after the wedding, he died, according to Forbes.
Two people who’d gotten the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and two people who received the Moderna vaccine interacted with the first two people, and they also tested positive. One of them, a man in his 60s, had to be hospitalized.
The researchers said their findings suggest the Delta variant “may possess immune evasion” in patients that received the Pfizer, Moderna, or Covaxin vaccines.
Forbes summed it up this way: “While the available Covid-19 vaccines can offer good protection against Covid-19, the protection is not perfect. As long as the pandemic is continuing, it is better to maintain multiple layers of Covid-19 precautions when you can.”
Sources:
Forbes: “Outdoor Wedding: 6 Fully Vaccinated Infected With Covid-19 Delta Variant.”
MedRxiv: “Transmission event of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant reveals multiple vaccine breakthrough infections.”
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