They are thinking it might be a new variant breaking thru. 2 are symptomatic, one of them had previously had Covid in November.
Hmmm, so far, from several articles I’ve read, I’ve only seen speculation from someone, that it might be a breakthrough: “CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky called the positive cases among the Yankees a possible instance of new variants but said that the cases don't negate how effective the vaccine is in large populations.”
I don’t take that as “thinking”, I take that as “speculating”, as they are investigating right now. Makes a difference to me.
In short, this is a good reminder that we’re not out of the woods entirely yet. It’s still important to be cautions, especially if you’ve been vaccinated but are not yet fully vaccinated.
Entirely true; however, I would say that the vaccines are not 100% effective, and if what someone is looking for is a 100% guarantee that they won’t get COVID-19, about the only way at this point is to distance yourself from all other people for the rest of your life.
The vaccines are effective at preventing measurable infection in ~95% of the instances for the M and P vaccines; ~66% for the vaccine (J&J) that the NY Yankees were administered.
The articles state “The eight infected Yankees include coaches, staff members and a player.”, but don’t say out of how many coaches, staff, and players were vaccinated. This is important, because if 24 or more were vaccinated and exposed, but only 8 came down with (asymptotic or mild) COVID-19, that comes out to 66% or better effectiveness, right? (Someone correct me if I’m wrong).
Additionally, in the cases where the vaccines do fail to prevent an infection, most/all of those show no symptoms or very mild symptoms (as is the case with The Yankees), and of those, none (??) have been shown to shed enough virus to infect others.
Lastly, the ever cautious CDC is is eliminating almost all mask mandates for those that are fully vaccinated, which says a lot to me.
I am VERY optimistic about the coming weeks. Feel free to call me out if there ends up being a monster NY-Yankees variant that ends up shutting NY down.