Israeli data suggest infected, vaccinated individuals have low chance of spreading COVID-19
Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, Israel's director of public health services, had some bad news and good news for CBS' John Dickerson on Sunday's edition of Face the Nation.
Preis told Dickerson that Israel, which has served as one of the best test cases for how COVID-19 vaccinations work in the real world because it vaccinated its population early and often, has found that about 50 percent of the people testing positive for COVID-19 right now are fully immunized, though she clarified that the vaccines are still highly effective at preventing severe disease.
But even though the data suggest that breakthrough infections may become more common over time (in the U.S., they make up a far lower share of new cases), there's evidence that those individuals are not spreading the virus frequently or widely. Preis explained that, excluding instances of household spread, 80 percent of vaccinated individuals who have been infected have "zero contacts" that have been confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 because of their connection. About 10 percent of those vaccinated, infected individuals have just one contact who likely caught the virus from them, while fewer than 10 percent have more than one contact who later tested positive. "Their ability to infect others is 50 percent lower than those who are not vaccinated," Preis said.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
-
The worst fast food restaurants in America
feature American Customer Satisfaction Index's most recent ranking of our nation's fast food restaurants
By The Week Staff Published
-
'The House GOP is begging to lose their majority'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Pig kidney transplant recipient dies
Speed Read Richard Slayman has passed away two months after undergoing the historic procedure
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Texas dairy worker gets bird flu from infected cow
Speed Read The virus has been spreading among cattle in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and New Mexico
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Dengue hits the Americas hard and early
Speed Read Puerto Rico has declared an epidemic as dengue cases surge
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Covid four years on: have we got over the pandemic?
Today's Big Question Brits suffering from both lockdown nostalgia and collective trauma that refuses to go away
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
US bans final type of asbestos
Speed Read Exposure to asbestos causes about 40,000 deaths in the U.S. each year
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The hollow classroom
Opinion Remote school let kids down. It will take much more than extra tutoring for kids to recover.
By Mark Gimein Published
-
Excess screen time is making children only see what is in front of them
Under the radar The future is looking blurry. And very nearsighted.
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Covid-19: what to know about UK's new Juno and Pirola variants
in depth Rapidly spreading new JN.1 strain is 'yet another reminder that the pandemic is far from over'
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
Long-term respiratory illness is here to stay
The Explainer Covid is not the only disease with a long version
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published