A study of health care workers who experienced breakthrough COVID-19 infections, Delta variant, after being fully vaccinated showed that the workers carried 251 times the viral load than those infected with old strains of the virus.

When added to other findings, what this means, according to study authors, is that “breakthrough Delta variant infections are associated with high viral loads, prolonged PCR positivity and low levels of vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies, explain the transmission between the vaccinated people.”

They added, “The absence of correlation between neutralizing antibody levels and peak viral loads suggested that vaccine might not lower the infectivity of breakthrough cases.”

In lay language, the study showed that while vaccination apparently prevents symptoms of infection with the virus, it not only gives vaccinated individuals “unusually high viral loads without becoming ill,” but also potentially transforms them into “presymptomatic superspreaders.”

SOURCE: The Lancet Preprint August 10, 2021