Only 0.03 percent of vaccinated people test positive for COVID-19, Wisconsin officials say

Only 0.03 percent of vaccinated people in Wisconsin have tested positive for COVID-19, officials say.

The state had 605 “breakthrough” COVID-19 cases among the 1.8 million residents who are fully vaccinated, Wisconsin Department of Health Services spokeswoman Jennifer Miller told The Hill.

The breakthrough cases in the Badger State were reported two weeks after people were fully vaccinated.

Miller said the cases are among 82,396 confirmed and probable cases since Jan. 18.

“With such a small percentage of breakthrough cases, but with COVID-19 still active in our state, we continue to encourage everyone to get vaccinated with one of the three highly effective COVID-19 vaccines available,” Miller told the Wisconsin State Journal.

Miller added that the vaccines prevent diseases and reduce serious illness and death and that, “much like the flu vaccine, people who do become sick after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine tend to have milder symptoms.”

Wisconsin has administered more than 4.3 million vaccine doses as of April 28, according to the state’s data. Of that number, more than 2.4 million have received one dose and 1.8 million have been fully vaccinated.

Wisconsin’s number of breakthrough cases is higher than the number the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has documented, though it still represents less than 1 percent of the fully-vaccinated population.

The CDC earlier this month said it’s only documented about 5,800 “breakthrough cases” out of 75 million fully vaccinated individuals in the U.S., representing 0.008 percent of fully vaccinated people. 

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said during a White House briefing earlier this month that such breakthrough cases are inevitable because no vaccine is 100 percent effective.

“We see this with all vaccines, in clinical trials, in the real world,” Fauci said “No vaccine is 100 percent efficacious, or effective, which means that you will always see breakthrough infections, regardless of the efficacy of your vaccine.”