Breakthrough COVID-19 is causing a lot of stress for people who are inoculated. Here’s what these infections have in common in people who have the Pfizer vaccine.

COVID-19 vaccines have curbed the pandemic, being the only measure capable of enforcing some control. While the initial months of the year were marked by a sharp decline of COVID-19 cases, this hasn’t been the case over the last couple of weeks, with new variants in circulation and groups of people who have yet to be inoculated. Then there’s breakthrough COVID-19.

According to the CDC, breakthrough COVID-19 cases refer to any instance where someone gets COVID-19 two weeks after receiving their final COVID-19 shot. A lot is unknown about these infections, but new research has found a trend in over 40% of breakthrough COVID-19 cases in people inoculated with the Pfizer vaccine.

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The study, published in the journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection, followed 152 participants that had been inoculated with Pfizer and had tested positive for COVID-19. The study concluded that 40% of these patients were immunosuppressed, including people who were going through chemotherapy, recipients of organ transplants, and more.

A deeper dive into the study showed that people with comorbidities made up a significant sample of infections. Seventy-one percent of patients had hypertension, 48% had diabetes, 27% had heart failure, etc. Only 6% of patients with breakthrough infections had no comorbidities.

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“We found that severe COVID-19 infection, associated with a high mortality rate, might develop in a minority of fully-vaccinated individuals with multiple comorbidities. Our patients had a higher rate of comorbidities and immunosuppression compared to previously reported non-vaccinated hospitalized COVID-19 patients,” said the study’s authors.

Despite this seemingly alarming data for people who are immunosuppressed, breakthrough COVID-19 infections remain very low. The real risk lies in people who are unvaccinated, who continue to make up the majority of COVID-19 infections and deaths that are making the news now. These deaths and infections are preventable; people just need to go and get their shots.