According to Memorial Hermann's Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Linda Yancey, the newly vaccinated can still be a carrier for COVID-19.
"We know for sure vaccine prevent serious illness and deaths from COVID-19," Yancey told Chron. "We know that a lot of people can get asymptomatic COVID-19. This is especially true with young people. Up to 30 percent of people can have the virus and not know it."
In some "breakthrough" cases, Americans who have received COVID-19 vaccines still contracted the disease more than 14 days after their second dose, according to WKMG's Louis Bolden.
"No vaccine is 100 percent effective. It just doesn't exist," Yancey said. "There will always be one or two people in every 1,000 that won't respond to the vaccine. Then you have people with underlying conditions who don't respond to the vaccine."
Fresh on the heels of spring break, there have been several factors in play in the troubling rise in cases across the country, Yancey explained. It's critical to get more people vaccinated in attempt to achieve herd immunity to get ahead of the variants, she added.
"Nationwide, we've got a combination of multiple factors—relaxation of the mask mandates, young kids on spring break, and of course the variants that are moving up," Yancey said. "We've had an increasing number of cases for the past 10 days, an uptick nationwide."
Perhaps the one thing Houstonians could do to make certain they don't spread the virus is to continue to maintain all COVID-19 precautions.
"Please, please, even if you vaccines, keep the mask on," Yancey said. "We're very worried about the U.K. variant. That's why it's so important to get people vaccinated as quickly as you can."
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