Being vaccinated for COVID-19 means protection against more than severe illness

Vaccination remains the best protection from COVID-19 infection. Like most vaccines, getting vaccinated for COVID-19 is not 100% perfect. But if vaccinated people do get sick or have a breakthrough infection, they are much less likely to be hospitalized or die than people who are not vaccinated.

"When we look at the overall severe infection, breakthrough infections are extremely uncommon," says Dr. Abinash Virk, a Mayo Clinic infectious diseases physician. "When we look at mild or asymptomatic infections, they are a little bit more common. But when you take the big scheme of things and look at the number of vaccinated individuals that are positive compared to the unvaccinated individuals, it's still substantially smaller than the unvaccinated."
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Information in this post was accurate at the time of its posting. Due to the fluid nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific understanding, along with guidelines and recommendations, may have changed since the original publication date.

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