Six fully vaccinated people who attended an outdoor wedding in Texas got COVID-19, a new study says.
All the breakthrough infections were in guests over 50.
There were two serious cases, including one death: an attendee who'd had India's Covaxin vaccine.
Six fully vaccinated people who attended an outdoor wedding in Texas in April came down with COVID-19, a new study says — a small outbreak that underscores how effective US-authorized vaccines are against even variants of the virus.
Though the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna may not knock out every COVID-19 case, especially now that the more infectious Delta variant dominates across the US, they are very good at preventing death from COVID-19.
The preprint study from Baylor College of Medicine found that only one person who'd gotten an Indian-made vaccine, Covaxin, died after attending the 92-person wedding near Houston.
The wedding took place in a "large, open-air tent" before the Delta variant was circulating widely in the US. Guests were required to be fully vaccinated at the event, though that policy operated on the honor system.
The study's authors said they suspect the Delta variant was introduced at the wedding by two people who had traveled from India and tested negative before their flight but developed symptoms in the US. All the COVID-19 patients said they'd had close encounters with those two people during the wedding, according to the study.
2 men in their 60s had the most severe COVID-19 cases
Zhang Zheng/Getty ImagesAll six guests who contracted symptomatic COVID-19 after the wedding were over 50. Two had gotten the vaccine from Pfizer, two had gotten the vaccine from Moderna, and two had gotten an Indian-made vaccine called Covaxin, the study said. Their infections were confirmed with lab tests and viral sequencing for Delta, it said.
Each experienced some common symptoms of COVID-19, including fever, cough, fatigue, and body aches, the study said. Those who'd gotten the Moderna and Covaxin vaccines also lost their sense of smell.
One Covaxin recipient and one person who'd gotten Pfizer's vaccine came down with more severe infections, the study said. The latter was a man in his 60s with no known medical conditions that increase the odds of contracting COVID-19 — he was hospitalized and given Regeneron's monoclonal antibody treatment (the same one President Donald Trump received) 10 days after the wedding. The Covaxin recipient, a man in his late 60s (also with no COVID-19 comorbidities), died from complications of COVID-19. The other people who contracted symptomatic COVID-19 after the wedding had preconditions including hypertension and diabetes or were classified as overweight, the study said.
Vaccines help prevent severe sickness
Rochelle Walensky, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said vaccinated people should still get a COVID-19 test if they experience symptoms like a runny nose, sore throat, or cough, which can be indicative of a mild Delta infection among fully vaccinated people.
"What I would say is if you have those upper-respiratory symptoms and you've been vaccinated, you should absolutely get a COVID-19 test," Walensky said during a White House COVID-19 briefing last week.
But she also stressed that preliminary data from the past few months suggested that 99.5% of coronavirus deaths in the US were occurring in unvaccinated people.
"Those deaths were preventable with a simple, safe shot," she said.
During the briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor, pointed to real-world data from Scotland and England suggesting that the vaccines authorized in the US are highly effective at preventing the most disastrous cases from this variant.
"Please get vaccinated," Fauci said. "It will protect you against the surging of the Delta variant."
