And some people can require hospitalization.
Therefore, simply counting infections does not tell the entire story.
The key question is often:
How severe was the illness?
The WHO says vaccinated people who experience COVID-19 after vaccination are more likely to have mild symptoms because protection against serious illness and death remains high.
The CDC similarly explains that vaccinated people can still become infected but are much less likely to die or become seriously ill than
people whose immune systems have not been prepared by vaccination.
This distinction is critical when interpreting social-media headlines.
“But My Vaccinated Friend Got COVID”
This is one of the most common arguments people make.
Someone knows a vaccinated person who got COVID.
Perhaps they even know several.
At first glance, that can appear to prove that vaccination doesn’t work.
But individual experiences cannot tell us how effective a medical intervention is across a population.
