Taiwan is still working to give initial COVID shots to much of its population. But it’s becoming apparent that even a fully vaccinated population won’t be enough to keep the disease completely at bay. That’s as a growing number of fully-vaccinated Taiwanese people contract “breakthrough” cases of COVID.
First, it was a man in his sixties who’d gotten his two COVID shots in Taiwan, plus an extra one overseas. Now, it’s two fully-vaccinated pilots. All are Taiwanese examples of “breakthrough” COVID cases among the vaccinated. Cases like these show no signs of going down.
National Taiwan University Hospital doctor Lee Ping-ing says that some people don’t produce detectable antibodies after vaccination, and that the amount of virus the body comes into contact with is important for determining immunity after receiving a vaccine.
It isn’t just breakthrough cases on minds here in Taiwan, either. Newly-arrived doses of the BioNTech vaccine are set to be administered to school-aged children, perhaps as early as mid-September. Lee says that parents should be on the lookout for potential complications in their kids.
He says symptoms that require immediate medical attention if they occur within a month of vaccination include tightness of the chest, fast breathing, and heart arrhythmia.